i-^m 


J.O.  Boyd 


The  Character  and  Claims 
of  the  Roman  Catholic 
English  Bible 


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THE  CHARACTER  AND  CLAIMS  OF  THE  ROMAN 
CATHOLIC  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

The  Bible  is  a  collection  of  books ;  it  dates  from  antiquity ; 
it  was  written  in  other  tongues  than  English.  It  need  occa- 
sion no  surprise,  therefore,  to  discover  that  two  English 
Bibles  may  differ  in  these  three  respects :  the  number  of 
books  they  contain,  the  exact  wording  of  their  respective 
originals,  and  the  phraseology  used  in  their  translation. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  English  Bible  authorized  by  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Eng- 
lish Bible  in  use  among  Protestants  on  the  other  hand,  do 
differ  in  all  these  three  respects,  (i)  They  differ  in  their 
canon.  That  is,  the  Roman  Catholic  Bible  admits  into  the 
sacred  volume  certain  books  and  parts  of  books  that  the 
Protestant  Bible  excludes.  (2)  They  differ  in  their  text. 
That  is,  the  ancient  original  from  which  the  one  is  trans- 
lated does  not  coincide  in  its  wording  with  that  from  which 
the  other  is  translated.  (3)  They  differ  in  their  version. 
That  is,  the  translators,  in  the  work  of  turning  those  origin- 
als into  English,  had  different  motives  and  methods.  A 
Protestant's  examination  of  the  Roman  Catholic  English 
Bible,  therefore,  will  naturally  follow  these  three  lines,  the 
canon,  the  text  and  the  version. 

But  first  of  all,  what  is  the  English  Bible  of  the  Romanist? 

The  only  English  Bible  authorized  by  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  is  that  translation  which  was  made  by  certain  teach- 
ers of  the  English  Seminary  at  Douai  in  Belgium  in  the 
1 6th  century,^  and  first  published  by  them,  tlie  New  Testa- 

^  For  records  of  this  Seminary  and  its  Masters,  see  the  following 
works :  Husenbeth's  English  Colleges  and  Convents  on  the  Continent", 
1849 ;  "The  Records  of  English  Catholics  tinder  the  Penal  Laivs",  two 
volumes,  of  which  the  tirst  is  "The  Diaries  of  the  English  College. 
Douay,"  London,  1878,  and  the  second  is  "Letters  and  Memorials  of 
William^  Cardinal  Allen",  London,  1882,  both  volumes  being  provided 
with  an  historical  introduction  by  Thos.  Fr.  Knox,  D.D. ;  also  Dr. 
Alphons  Bellesheim's  "Wilhelm,  Cardinal  Allen";  and  the  general 
biographies. 


568  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL   REVIEW 

ment  at  Rheims  in  France  in  1582,  the  entire  Bible  at  Douai 
in  1609-10.  In  its  successive  editions  and  revisions  it 
has  repeatedly  received  the  imprimatur  of  the  authorities 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  from  its  first  publication  down  to 
the  present  day.-  That  Church  is  committed  to  it  not  only 
positively  by  this  ecclesiastical  approval,  but  also  negatively 
by  an  unvarying  opposition  to  all  other  English,  versions. 
In  so  far  as  the  authorities  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
on  English-speaking  soil  are  unwilling  to  advocate  the  en- 
tire suppression  of  vernacular  Bibles,^  their  opposition  to 
other  English  versions  is  obviously  the  exact  measure  of 
their  adhesion  to  the  Douai  Version.  Or,  stated  in  another 
way,  the  alternative  for  an  English-speaking  Catholic  is  the 
Douai  Bible  in  one  or  another  of  its  editions,  or  no  English 
Bible,  as  long  as  he  remains  a  good  Catholic. 


'  The  original  editions  indeed  bore  no  official  imprimatur,  but  the 
New  Testament  bore  a  recommendation  signed  by  four  members  of  the 
Faculty  of  Rheims,  and  the  Old  Testament  a  similar  recommendation 
signed  by  three  divines  of  the  University  of  Douai.  Numerous  Dub- 
lin editions  bearing  the  approval  of  John  Thos.  Troy,  R.  C.  Arch- 
bishop of  Dublin,  refer  to  the  Douai  Old  Testament,  the  Rheims  New 
Testament,  and  the  Challoner  editions  (1749,  1750  and  1752),  all  in 
one  breath,  as  "Anglicis  jam  approbatis  versionibus" .  Challoner's  edi- 
tions bore  the  approbation  of  Green  and  Walton,  and  these  dignitaries' 
names  were  repeated  in  later  reprints  of  Challoner  (as  MacMahon's 
"eighth",  1810).  The  first  issue  of  MacMahon's  Challoner  (1783) 
was  approved  by  James  Carpenter,  predecessor  of  Dr.  Troy  at  Dublin. 
The  Scotch  editions  of  Challoner  bore  the  approbation  of  Dr.  Hey, 
"one  of  the  Vicars  Apostolic  in  Scotland".  Haydock's  Manchester- 
Dublin  editions  were  originally  approved  by  Dr.  Gibson,  Vicar  Apos- 
tolic, and  a  Haydock's  Bible  of  1850  (Husenbeth's  reprint)  carries 
the  "approbation  and  sanction"  of  Bishop  Wareing,  the  editor's  eccle- 
siastical superior,  and  "the  concurrent  approbation  and  sanction  of  all 
the  Right  Rev.  Vicars  x\postolic  of  Great  Britain".  The  editions  for 
sale  today  at  American  bookshops  (many  of  them  Archbishop  Ken- 
rick's  revision,  1849-1859)  are  approved  by  Cardinal  Gibbons,  the  most 
exalted  dignitary  of  the  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy  in  this  countrJ^ 

*  See  for  example  Cardinal  Gibbons'  Faith  of  Ottr  Fatliers",  pp.  116 
117:  "The  Church,  far  from  being  opposed  to  the  reading  of  the 
Scriptures,  does  all  she  can  to  encourage  their  perusal" ;  "Be  assured 
that  if  you  become  a  Catholic,  you  will  never  be  forbidden  to  read 
the  Bible.  It  is  our  earnest  wish  that  every  word  of  the  Gospel  may 
be  imprinted  on  your  memory  and  on  your  heart." 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  569 

The  Canon. 

When  the  Protestant  picks  up  a  CathoHc  Bible  for  the 
first  time,  the  most  obvious  difference  between  it  and  the 
Bible  with  which  he  is  familiar  is  the  greater  bulk  of  the 
Catholic  Bible.  In  the  New  Testament  they  are  alike,  but 
in  the  Old  Testament  the  Catholic  Bible  contains,  mingled 
with  the  books  of  the  Protestant  canon,  a  few  books  that 
the  Protestant  Bible  excludes.  On  closer  investigation  these 
additions  prove  to  be  Tobias,  Judith,  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus, 
and  First  and  Second  Maccabees.  There  are  also  sections 
added  by  the  Catholics  to  books  present  in  their  shorter 
form  in  the  Protestant  Old  Testament.  So  to  Esther  they 
add  seven  chapters  at  the  end  ;^  to  Daniel,  the  Hymn  of  the 
Three  Children  (in  Chap.  3),  the  History  of  Susanna  (Chap. 
13),  and  Bel  and  the  Dragon  (Chap.  14)  ;  and  to  Jeremiah, 
the  six  chapters  under  the  separate  title  of  Baruch,  of  which 
the  last  is  the  Epistle  of  Jeremiah.^ 

Why  did  the  Douai  translators  admit,  and  why  does  the 
Protestant's  Bible  exclude,  these  books  and  sections? 

The  Douai  translators  admitted  them,  because  the  Council 
of  Trent  had  declared  in  1546  that  they  belonged  in  the 
canon, ^  and  because  for  these  translators  the  decrees  of  the 
Council  of  Trent  had  binding  authority.'^ 


*  Chap.  X.  4 — chap.  xvi. 

"The  decree  of  Trent  reads:  "Jereniias  cum  Baruch";  though  ar- 
ranged in  the  Douai  Bible  as  a  separate  book,  Baruch  is  thus  officially- 
regarded  as  an  addition  to  Jeremiah. 

'^"Sacrorutn  librorum  indicem  huic  decreto  adscribendum  censuit 
[sc,  synodus],  ne  cui  dubitatio  suboriri  possit,  quinam  sint  qui  ab  ipsa 
synodo  suscipiuntur.  Stmt  vero  infra  scripti.  Testamenti  veteris: 
quinque  Moysis,  id  est:  Genesis — Deuteronomium;  Josuae — Nehemias, 
Tobias,  Judith,  Esther,  Job — Canticum  Canticorum,  Sapientia,  Eccle- 
siasticus, Isaias,  Jeremias  cum  Baruch,  Ezechiel — Malachias,  duo 
Machabaeorum ,  primus  et  secundus.  Test,  novis:  &c.  .  .  .  Si  quis 
autem  libros  ipsos  integros  cum  omnibus  suis  partibus,  prout  in  ecclesia 
catholica  legi  consueverunt,  et  in  veteri  vulgata  latina  editone  haben- 
tur,  pro  sacris  et  canonicis  non  susceperit,  et  traditiones  praedictas 
sciens  et  prudens  contempserit,  anathema  sit.  Omnes  itaque  intelligant, 
quo  ordine  et  via  ipsa  synodus  post  jactum  fidei  confessionis  funda- 
mentum  sit  progressura,  et  quibus  potissimum  testimoniis  ac  praesidiis 


570  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL   REVIEW 

It  should  be  observed  that  this  answer  is  in  two  parts. 
With  the  second  part  the  present  discussion  has  nothing- 
to  do.  If  a  doubt  rise  in  the  mind  of  any  person  whether 
the  dehverances  of  the  Council  of  Trent  have  binding  au- 
thority, let  him  consider,  first,  that  we  have  here  to  do  only 
with  an  historical  fact — the  Douai  translators  did  feel  them- 
selves bound  by  that  Council;  and  second,  that  at  the  pres- 
ent day,  even  if  not  in  1582,  every  Catholic  is  bound  to  the 
canon  of  Trent,  for  in  1870  the  Vatican  Council  declared:* 
"If  anyone  accept  not  the  books  of  Holy  Scripture,  entire 
with  all  their  parts  as  they  were  named  by  the  Holy  Synod 
of  Trent,  as  sacred  and  canonical,  or  deny  that  they  were 
divinely  inspired,  let  him  be  anathema !" 

It  is  with  the  first  part  of  the  above  answer  that  this  dis- 
cussion is  concerned.  By  what  right  did  the  Council  of 
Trent  include  these  books  in  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment? Thus  the  question  is  simply  pushed  one  step  further 
back. 

Whatever  the  motives  that  contributed  to  this  decision  of 
the   Council,®  the  only   rational  grounds   for  the   decision 

in  confirmandis  dogviatibus  et  instaurandis  in  ecclesia  inoribus  sit 
usura."     (Sessio  qnarta,  Decretum  de  canonicis  scripturis) . 

^  Referring  to  the  Vulgate,  the  preface  to  the  Rheims  New  Testament 
(§26)  says :  "The  Holy  Council  of  Trent  .  .  .  hath  declared  and 
defined  this  only  of  all  other  Latin  translations,  to  be  authentical,  and 
so  only  to  be  used  and  taken  in  public  lessons,  .  .  .  and  that  no 
man  presume  upon  any  pretence  to  reject  or  refuse  the  same."  The 
quotation  of  this  decree  as  authoritative  shows  that  the  Rhemists  con- 
sidered themselves  bound  by  the  decrees  of  the  Council. 

*  Constit.  de  fide,  xi.  can.  4:  "Si  quis  sac.  scrip,  libros  integros 
cum  omnibus  suis  partibus,  prout  illos  sac.  Trident,  synodus  recensiiit, 
pro  sacris  et  canonicis  nan  susceperit,  aut  eos  divinitus  inspiratos  esse 
negaverit,  anathema  sit."  Also,  Constit.  de  fide,  c.ii:  "Vet.  et  Nov. 
Testamen.  libri,  prout  in  ejusdem  [Trident.]  concilii  decreto  censen- 
tur, et  in  veteri  vulgata  latina  editione  habentur,  pro  sacris  et  canoni- 
cis suscipiendi  sunt." 

*The  motives  that  influenced  the  Council  are  displayed  in  the  reports 
of  its  debates  that  have  been  published  by  several  who  were  in  at- 
tendance. For  even  among  the  few  prelates  (about  thirty)  who  par- 
ticipated in  these  debates,  there  was  considerable  diversity  of  opinion. 
Johannes  Delitzsch  {" Lehrsystem  der  romischen  Kirche")  summarizes 
these  motives  under  the  four   following  heads:      (i)    the  serviceable- 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC   ENGLISH    BIBLE  57I 

were  the  existence  of  these  books  in  the  Greek  Old  Testament 
side  by  side  with  those  belonging  to  the  Hebrew  canon,  their 
presence  in  the  canonical  lists  of  earlier  Councils,  and  their 
place  for  centuries  in  the  manuscripts  and  liturgies  of  the 
Latin  Church.  Were  these  grounds  sufficient  to  justify  the 
course  adopted  at  Trent? 

( I )  It  is  the  Old  Testament  canon  of  Protestants  and  not 
that  of  Rome,  which  coincides  exactly  with  the  canon  of  the 
Jews.  The  Old  Testament  of  the  Jews  was  the  Old  Testa- 
ment of  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles.  Whatever  authority, 
therefore,  is  possessed  by  Christ  and  the  Apostles  to  decide 
for  the  Christian  Church  the  extent  of  the  Old  Testament, 
that  authority  attaches  to  the  Old  Testament  iiiinus  the  Cath- 
olic additions. 

These  assertions  of  the  Protestants  are  attacked  by  Ro- 
manists. The  disputed  books,  they  say,  were  in  the  Septua- 
gint  at  the  time  of  Christ  and  the  Apostles,  who  quote  the 
Old  Testament  generally  according  to  the  Septuagint  ver- 
sion, thus  sanctioning  it.  There  are  even  some  citations 
of  these  books  in  the  New  Testament  writings.  Does  not 
this  prove  that  the  New  Testament  guarantees  the  author- 
ity of  the  larger  canon  of  Catholicism  ? 

This  "Septuagint",  of  which  so  much  is  thus  made,  used  to 
be  regarded  as  a  version  of  Scripture  definite  and  fixed 
with  respect  to  its  date,  its  authors  and  its  text.    So  ran  that 


ness  of  the  Apocrypha  for  proving  Romish  dogmas  that  the  canonical 
books  do  not  prove.  (So  angelic  intercession  Tob.  xii.  12,  and  that  of 
the  dead  II  Mace.  xv.  I4ff,  Baruch  iii.  4;  purgatory,  and  intercession 
of  the  living  for  the  dead  II  Mace.  xii.  42ff;  the  merit  of  good  works 
Tob.  iv.  7).  Tanner,  the  Catholic  controversialist,  {"Das  cath.  Tradi- 
tions- und  das  prot.  Schriftprincip")  admits :  "The  Church  declared 
these  books  canonical  for  the  reason  that  .  .  .  the  Church  found 
her  own  spirit  in  these  books."  (2)  In  order  not  to  weaken  the  respect 
for  the  Vulgate  by  sundering  out  the  Apocrypha.  (3)  To  strengthen 
m  every  way  the  contrast  with  the  Protestants,  who  had  committed 
themselves  to  the  Hebrew  canon.  (4)  To  fill  the  gap  in  the  contin- 
uous inspiration  of  the  Church,  which  otherwise  would  yawn  between 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and  would  thus  create  a  presumption 
against  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  inspiration  continued  in  the  Church 
after  the  Apostles. 


573  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

ancient  tradition  of  tlie  seventy-two  scribes  working  sev- 
erity-two days,  which  gave  to  the  Septuagint  its  name. 
But  modern  scholarship  has  shown  that  the  sacred  books  of 
the  Jews  were  given  their  vulgar  Greek  dress  in  quite  a 
different  manner.  Under  the  pressure  of  Alexandrian  in- 
fluence, Greek-speaking  Jews  turned  their  Scriptures  into 
the  Hellenistic  Greek  of  the  day,  not  all  at  once  nor  even 
in  one  generation.  It  was  a  slow  work,  performed  by  many 
hands  and  exhibiting  all  the  unevenness  of  such  a  process. 
The  revered  Law  of  Moses  was  rendered  first  and  best, 
probably  before  the  middle  of  the  3d  centuiy  B.C.  The 
prophetical,  poetical  and  historical  books  followed  in  the 
course  of  about  a  century.  From  the  Prologue  to  the  Greek 
translation  of  Ecclesiasticus,  about  132  B.C.,  we  learn  that 
before  that  time  "the  Law  and  the  Prophets  and  the  rest 
of  the  books"  had  already  been  translated.  But  not  alone 
those  "books  of  the  fathers", ^°  revered  as  divine  by  the  whole 
Jewish  nation,  received  a  Greek  dress.  This  same  Prologue 
shows  how  other  books,  like  Ecclesiasticus  itself,  "profit- 
able to  those  who  love  learning."^^  came  also  to  be  translated 
into  Greek  or  written  in  Greek.  Such  "profitable"  compo- 
sitions, based  upon  Israel's  religion  and  history,  came  not 
unnaturally  to  be  cherished  by  Jews  of  a  later  age,  and,  when 
the  Christian  Church  took  over  the  Greek  Old  Testament 
from  the  Jews,  it  took  with  it  these  "profitable"  writings 
of  kindred  spirit. 

Yet  the  point  at  issue  is  not  touched  when  certain  of  these 
books  are  pointed  out  to  us  in  the  most  ancient  codices  of  the 
Septuagint  and  in  the  versions  made  from  it.^^    Presence  in 

"  Quoted  from  the  Prologue  to  Ecclesiasticus. 

"By  "learning"  the  author  of  the  Prologue  means  the  Scriptures. 

"The  Vatican  manuscript,  B,  contains  the  books  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic canon,  except  I  and  II  Maccabees,  and  adds  III  (I)  Esdras.  The 
Sinaitic  manuscript,  X,  omits  II  Maccabees  but  adds  IV  Maccabees. 
Manuscript  A,  nearly  as  old  as  these,  adds  III  Esdras,  III  and  IV 
Maccabees,  and  the  Prayer  of  Manasses.  The  Old  Latin  version  of 
the  African  Church  (2nd  century),  being  made  from  the  Greek  and 
not  the  Hebrew,  translated  the  Greek  Apocrypha  along  with  the  Greek 
Old  Testament.     All  these  sources  are  Christian. 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLCSH    BIBLE  573 

a  manuscript  does  not  prove  canonicity ;  not  even  the  opin- 
ion of  the  scribe  or  owner  of  the  manuscript  can  be  argued 
therefrom,  much  less  the  opinion  of  his  age  or  country. 
To  be  "in  the  Septuagint"  means  really  no  more  than  to  be 
a  popularly  cherished  Jewish  book  in  Greek,  circulated  with 
the  Old  Testament  among  the  early  Christians.  Not  among 
the  Jews  of  Christ's  time,  be  it  noted.  For  we  have  no  evi- 
dence whatever  that  the  Jews  had  been  in  the  habit  of  ming- 
ling these  "profitable"  writings  indiscriminately  with  "the 
books  of  the  fathers" ;  all  our  Septuagint  codices  and  ver- 
sions are  from  Christian  sources.  On  the  contrar}^,  as  will 
presently  appear,  there  is  most  positive  testimony  to  the 
unique  place  that  the  genuine  Scriptures  held  in  the  esteem 
of  the  Greek-speaking  Jews  contemporary  with  Christ  and 
the  Apostles.  And  down  to  the  4th  century  there  seems  to 
have  lived  on  in  the  best-instructed  Christian  circles  the 
opinion  that  the  twenty-two^ ^  books  of  the  true  Old  Testa- 
ment were  all  that  constituted  the  Old  Testament  even  in  the 
Septuagint.  For  the  list  of  the  "books  of  the  Old  Covenant" 
received  by  Melito  from  the  Jewish  Christians  of  Palestine 
in  the  2nd  century ''''  follows  the  order  of  the  Septuagint, 
as  well  as  exhibiting  the  Septuagint  titles  and  adopting  the 
Septuagint  divisions  :  that  is,  it  is  the  canon  of  the  Palestinian 
Septuagint  as  it  circulated  in  sub-apostolic  times.  And 
Cyril,  Bishop  of  Jerusalem  (died  386)  says:^^  "Learn  from 
the  Church  what  are  the  books  of  the  Old  Covenant  .  .  . 
and  I  pray  you  read  nothing  of  the  Apocryphal  books  ... 


"  As  will  appear  presently,  the  numbers  twenty-two  and  twenty-four 
always  indicate  the  shorter  canon  of  the  Jews.  In  the  Protestant 
Old  Testament  count  the  double  books  (Samuel,  Kings,  Chronicles,  and 
Ezra-Nehemiah)  as  single  books,  and  unite  the  twelve  minor  prophets 
in  one  book,  and  twenty-four  is  the  sum ;  attach  Ruth  to  Judges 
and  Lamentations  to  Jeremiah,  and  the  total  is  twenty-two.  The  canon 
of  Trent  cannot  possibly  be  so  reckoned  as  to  yield  these  numbers, 
nor  does  anyone  claim  that  it  can  be. 

^  See  page  576. 

"In  his  instructions  to  catechumens,  (Catechesis  IV,  "De  decern 
dogmatibus") ,  §§  33fif,  "On  the  divine  Scriptures";  quoted  by  West- 
cott,  "The  Bible  in  the  Church",  pp.  i68f.     See  also  page  578,  note  28. 


574  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

Read  the  divine  Scriptures,  the  twenty-two  books  of  the 
Old  Covenant,  which  were  translated  by  the  seventy-two 
translators  .  .  .  For  the  translation  of  the  divine  Scriptures 
which  were  spoken  by  the  Holy  Spirit  was  accomplished 
through  the  Holy  Spirit.  Read  the  twenty-two  books  which 
these  rendered,  but  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Apocry- 
phal writings." 

Again,  the  fact  that  in  the  New  Testament  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  frequently  (by  no  means  always)  quoted  according 
to  its  wording  in  the  Septuagint,  has  clearly  no  bearing 
upon  the  extent  of  the  canon.  The  New  Testament  writers 
wrote  in  Greek  for  Hellenistic  readers,  and  when  they  quoted 
the  Old  Testament  it  was  most  natural  for  them  to  quote 
it  as  it  lay  at  hand  in  this  old  Hellenistic  version  long 
familiar  to  all  Greek-speaking  Jews. 

As  for  allusions  in  the  New  Testament  to  apocryphal 
writings,  the  argument,  if  it  proved  anything,  would  prove 
too  much  to  suit  the  Roman  Catholic.  For  the  clearest 
cases  of  such  allusions^*^  to  books  not  in  the  Hebrew  canon 
concern  books  not  even  in  the  Roman  Catholic  canon.  ^'^  Such 
references  in  fact  lend  no  more  authority  to  these  apocry- 
phal Jewish  productions,  than  Paul's  quotations  from 
heathen  poets^^  serve  to  make  their  writings  canonical. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Protestant  can  point  to  indisput- 
able contemporary  evidence  that  his  canon  contains  no  more 
and  no  less  than  that  Old  Testament  of  which  our  Lord  said 
that  "the  Scripture  catmot  be  broken. "^^ 

Without  appealing  to  the  uniform  and  repeated  but  un- 


"Allusions",  "traces  of  acquaintance",  "reminiscences",  not  cita- 
tions; see  admissions  of  this  by  friends  of  the  Apocrypha,  as  Bleek, 
in  "Studien  umd  Kritiken"  for  1853,  pp.  267-354,  and  Stier,  quoted  by 
Oehler  in  Herzog's  "Rcal-Encyclopaedie",  vol.  vii,  p.  257. 

"As,  for  example,  Jude  14,  (compare  the  "Book  of  Enoch",  chap,  ii), 
and  Jude  9  (compare  the  "Assumption  of  Moses",  as  recorded  by 
Origen  De  principiis,  iii.  2,  i). 

"Titus  i.  12  from  Epimenides,  a  Cretan  of  the  6th  century  B.  C. 
Acts  xvii.  28  from  Aratus,  a  Cihcian  of  the  2nd  century  B.  C.  i  Cor. 
XV.  33  from  the  celebrated  comedian  Menander,  of  the  3d  century  B.  C. 

"John  X.  35. 


THE   ROMAN    CATHOLIC   ENGLISH    BIBLE  575 

dated  testimony  of  the  Talmud  to  the  twenty-four  constit- 
uent elements  of  the  Jewish  canon, ^^  the  Protestant  can 
summon  two  witnesses  who  establish  his  case  beyond  ques- 
tion. These  are  Josephus  and  Philo.  They  are  admirably 
adapted  to  supplement  each  other's  testimony.  That  of  Jose- 
phus is  affirmative,  that  of  Philo  negative;  Josephus  was  a 
contemporary  of  the  Apostles  only,  Philo  of  our  Lord  also; 
Josephus  was  a  Palestinian  Jew,  Philo  an  Alexandrian  Jew. 
Both  were  of  priestly  origin,  well-read  in  the  sacred  books 
of  their  nation,  and  anxious  to  commend  them  to  the  world. 
Now  Josephus,  in  his  work  against  Apion,  explicitly 
states^^  that  the  Jews  have  not  an  indefinite  number  of 
sacred  writings,  "but  only  twenty-two,  containing  the  record 
of  all  time,  which  have  been  justly  believed  to  be  divine." 
He  proceeds  to  divide  these  twenty-two  books  into  three 
classes,  consisting  respectively  of  five,  thirteen  and  four,  and 
to  describe  each  division  in  such  a  way  that  the  Protestant 
Old  Testament,  no  more  and  no  less,  is  evidently  intended. 
But  as  if  there  might  be  any  remaining  doubt  concerning  his 
atttitude  towards  the  books  whose  cononicity  is  maintained 
by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  he  adds :  "From  the  time  of 
Artaxerxes  to  our  own  time  each  event  has  been  recorded ; 
but  the  records  have  not  been  deemed  worthy  of  the  same 
credit  as  those  of  earlier  date  .  .  .  Though  so  long  a  time 
has  now  passed,  no  one  has  dared  either  to  add  anything 
to  them  [that  is,  to  the  true  sacred  writings] ,  or  to  take  any- 
thing from  them,  or  to  alter  anything."  Whatever  may  be 
held  true  concerning  the  formation  of  the  Old  Testament 

^  These  Jewish  writings  record  for  us  the  discussions  carried  on 
between  rival  schools  and  doctors  of  the  Law,  concerning  the  right 
of  certain  books  that  were  in  the  canon  to  remain  in  it.  There  was 
never  any  question  of  admitting  other  books,  such  as  Ecclesiasticus, 
and  the  canonicity  of  those  already  in  the  canon  was  never  in  serious 
danger  of  being  disproved.  In  IV  (II)  Esdras,  however,  which  dates 
from  the  end  of  the  first  century  of  our  era,  the  canon  already  con- 
sists of  twenty- four  books ;  this  is  the  number  obtained  by  deducting 
the  seventy  secret  books  of  tradition  from  the  total  of  ninety-four 
written  by  Ezra   (chap.  xiv.  verses  44-46). 

^  Against  Apion  i.  8. 


576  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

canon,  no  doubt  can  be  entertained  as  to  what  was  thought 
to  be  true  concerning  it  in  the  first  century  of  our  era,  both 
in  Palestine,  and  in  Alexandria  where  Apion  lived. 

Philo  flourished  half  a  century  earlier,  and  is  the  repre- 
sentative writer  of  Alexandrian  Judaism.  If  anywhere, 
surely  in  Alexandria,  the  apocryphal  writings  received  a 
regard  that  might  be  mistaken  for  canonization.  Yet  in 
Philo's  voluminous  works,  in  which  he  quotes  largely  from 
the  canonical  Scriptures  of  his  nation,  he  does  not  once 
quote  from  the  apocryphal  writings.  This  negative  testi- 
mony is  all  the  more  striking  because  we  know  that  Philo 
must  have  been  familiar  with  at  least  a  part  of  the  Apoc- 
rypha, and  because  its  spirit  is  often  singularly  akin  to  his 
own.^^ 

The  assertion,  therefore,  that  at  the  time  of  our  Lord 
the  canon  of  the  Jews  included  these  disputed  writings,  can 
only  be  made  in  the  face  of  unchallenged  and  unmistakable 
opposing  evidence. 

(2)  It  is  the  Old  Testament  canon  of  Protestants  that 
coincides  with  the  Old  Testament  canon  of  the  early  Chris- 
tian Church.  This  would  naturally  be  expected  after  the 
proof  of  the  first  proposition.  But  there  is  ample  evidence 
to  prove  it  independently. 

The  evidence  begins  with  Melito,  Bishop  of  Sardis  about 
175  A.D.  Eusebius,  the  historian  of  the  early  Church,  has 
happily  preserved  for  us  (Hist.  Eccles.  iv.  26)  Melito's 
list  of  the  sacred  books,  which  he  learned,  we  are  told,  "by 
exact  inquiry  on  a  journey  to  the  East"  (Palestine).  His 
canon,  save  for  the  omission  of  Esther,^^  is  the  canon  of 


^  "The  greatest  Philo  scholar  of  the  present  day,  C.  Siegfried,  says 
of  Philo  (in  his  'Philo',  Jena,  1875,  p.  161)  :  'His  canon  is  already 
essentially  our  own'"  [that  is,  the  Protestant  canon].  Strack,  in  Her- 
zog-Plitt   "Real-Encyclopaedie" ,   vol.   vii.,   p.  425. 

*^  This  may  be  an  accidental  omission,  like  that  of  the  Minor  Prophets 
from  Origen's  list  in  Eusebius ;  for  Esther's  place  at  the  end  of  the  list, 
following  Esdras  (Ezra),  a  name  that  so  much  resembles  Esther,  was 
very  precarious.  Some  have  thought  that,  like  Nehemiah,  Esther  was 
included  in  one  book  with  Esdras,  but  this  is  improbable.  It  is  prob- 
able that  the  Palestinian  Christians,  like  Athanasius  at  a  later  time. 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  57/ 

the  Jews,  of  the  Apostles,  and  of  the  Protestants.  To  the 
same  century  and  probably  to  a  date  earlier  than  Melito, 
though  naturally  indefinite,  must  be  referred  the  earliest 
Syriac  translation.  The  Old  Testament  was  translated  di- 
rectly from  the  Hebrew  and  included  only  the  Jewish  canon. 
The  apocryphal  books  were  not  added  to  it  till  much  later. 
In  the  Western  Church,  Justin  Martyr  (about  A.D,  150), 
though  writing  in  Greek  and  quoting  the  Old  Testament  ac- 
cording to  the  Septuagint,  never  quotes  from  the  Apoc- 
rypha ;-^  and  Tertullian  in  North  Africa,  however  much  he 
quotes  the  Apocrypha  with  a  respect  justly  due  only  to  Holy 
Scripture,  yet  preserves  the  true  tradition  of  the  canon  by 
giving  the  number  of  the  Old  Testament  books  as  twenty- 
four. 

All  these  witnesses  belong  to  the  2nd  century,  the  age  of 
the  primitive  Church.  In  the  next  generation,  Origen  at 
Alexandria  continues  the  chain  of  evidence  by  a  list  of  the 
Old  Testament  books,  preserved,  like  Melito's  list,  in  Euse- 
bius'  history, ^^  and,  in  a  more  perfect  form,  in  a  Latin  trans- 
lation by  Ruffinus.  It  numbers  the  familiar  twenty-two. 
In  North  Africa,  Cyprian  proves  the  authority  of  a  passage 
that  he  quotes  from  the  Apocrypha,  by  appealing  to  "the 
testimony  of  truth",  the  Book  of  Acts. 

In  the  4th  and  5th  centuries  there  are  many  lists  naming 
twenty-two  books,  differing  slightly  in  their  treatment  of 
Esther  and  the  additions  to  Jeremiah,  and  differing  con- 
siderably in  the  order  of  the  books,  but  all  of  them  pre- 
senting the  shorter  canon  of  Protestantism,  not  the  larger 
canon  of  Roman  Catholicism,  as  the  true  canon  of  Scrip- 


were  misled  into  rejecting  Esther  as  apocryphal  because  of  its  apoc- 
ryphal additions.  Thus  the  early  "Synopsis  of  Divine  Scriptures" 
(wrongly  attributed  to  Athanasius  and  printed  with  his  works,  ed. 
Migne,  vol.  iv.,  col.  283)  says  that  Esther  "begins  with  the  dream  of 
Mordecai" ;  but  this  is  in  fact  the  beginning  of  the  apocryphal  section. 

"  In  debating  with  Trypho,  an  Ephesian  Jew,  the  differences  between 
the  Jews  and  the  Christians,  Justin  never  alludes  to  a  different  canon. 

**  Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccles.  vi.  25.  He  omits  the  Minor  Prophets  (but 
this  is  a  copyist's  error),  and  includes  the  "Epistle  of  Jeremiah", 
which  is  probably  the  same  as  chap.  vi.  of  Baruch  in  the  Vulgate. 


578  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

ture.  The  names  of  the  authors  of  these  lists  are  the  most 
distinguished  names  in  Church  History,  and  are  distributed 
over  the  whole  Church :  in  the  Eastern  Church,  Athanas- 
ius  in  Egypt,^^  Gregory  Nazianzen  at  Constantinople,^'^ 
Cyril  in  Palestine, ^^  Epiphanius  in  Cyprus,^^  and  Amphil- 
ochius  in  Asia  Minor  ;^°  in  the  Western  Church,  Hilary  in 
Gaul,^^  Ruffinus  in  Italy, ^-  and,  at  once  the  most  distin- 
guished, the  most  competent,  and  the  most  emphatic  witness 
of  them  all,  Jerome,  the  Roman  Presbyter,  father  of  the 
Latin  Vulgate  Bible.  This  learned  Biblical  scholar  of  an- 
tiquity writes  in  the  "Prologiis  Galeatiis"  prefixed  to  his 


^Epist.  fest.,  39.  He  omits  Esther,  reckons  Ruth  separately,  and 
adds  to  Jeremiah  not  only  Lamentations  but  also  Baruch  and  the 
Epistle. 

^  Carmina  lib.  I,  §  i,  12.  He  counts  Ruth  separately  and  omits 
Esther. 

-^  Catech.  iv  35  (compare  page  573).  He  adds  to  Jeremiah  his  Epis- 
tle and  Baruch,  as  well  as  Lamentations.  The  same  list,  perhaps 
derived  from  Cyril,  is  usually  appended  to  the  decrees  of  the  Council 
of  Laodicea   (A.  D.  363),  but  is  a  later  interpolation. 

^  He  gives  three  lists.  Two  of  these  {De  mens,  et  pond.,  §  4  and 
§  2Z)  are  identical  with  the  Hebrew  canon.  The  third  {Haer.  viii.  6) 
adds  to  Jeremiah  his  Epistle  and  that  of  Baruch,  as  well  as  Lamenta- 
tions. 

^  Iambi  ad  Seleuc,  2.  He  counts  Ruth  instead  of  Esther,  but  at  the 
end  says :  "Some  add  Esther." 

^^Prol.  in  lib.  Psalmorum,  15.  The  same  canon  as  that  of  Origen, 
without  the  omission  of  the  Minor  Prophets. 

^  Comm.  in  symb.  apost.,  37,  38.  His  list  is  exactly  the  Jewish 
canon.  His  added  remarks  are  worthy  of  notice :  "These  are  the 
books  which  the  Fathers  included  within  the  canon,  and  from  which 
it  was  their  will  that  the  dogmas  of  our  faith  should  be  maintained. 
Yet  it  must  be  known  that  there  are  other  books  which  have  been 
called  by  the  ancients  not  canonical,  but  ecclesiastical,  that  is,  the  Wis- 
dom (as  it  is  called)  of  Solomon,  and  the  other  Wisdom  of  the  Son 
of  Sirach  .  .  .  The  Book  of  Tobias  is  of  the  same  class,  and 
Judith,  and  the  Book  of  the  Maccabees  ...  all  which  they  willed 
should  be  read  in  the  churches,  but  not  alleged  to  support  any  article 
of  faith"  (Tr.  by  Westcott).  In  general,  from  the  formal  lists  of  all 
these  Fathers,  we  know  how  to  interpret  their  use  of  the  Apocrypha. 
Their  informal,  uncritical  habit  of  promiscuous  quotation  when  writ- 
ing controversially  or  didactically  on  other  topics,  is  to  be  checked 
by  these  formal  expressions  of  their  true  belief  when  writing  spe- 
cifically on  the  subject  of  the  canon. 


THE   ROMAN    CATHOLIC   ENGLISH    BIBLE  579 

translation  of  the  Old  Testament:  "This  prologue  to  the 
Scriptures  may  serve  as  a  sort  of  helmeted  front  for  all  the 
books  that  we  have  translated  from  Hebrew  into  Latin,  in 
order  that  we  may  know  that  whatever  is  outside  of  these 
must  be  put  among  the  Apocrypha.  Hence  Wisdom,  com- 
monly called  that  of  Solomon,  and  the  Book  of  Jesus  son 
of  Sirach  (Ecclesiasticus)  and  Judith  and  Tobias  and  the 
Shepherd  are  not  in  the  canon."  And  this  is  but  one  of  many 
declarations  by  Jerome  to  the  same  effect.  ^^ 

Against  all  this,  Roman  Catholics  allege  the  presence  of 
these  books  in  the  canonical  lists  of  certain  Councils,  and 
the  sanction  given  them  by  certain  Fathers.  The  only  Coun- 
cils previous  to  Trent  that  have  left  authentic  canonical 
lists^*  embodying  the  larger  Old  Testament  canon  are  two 

**So,  for  example,  in  the  preface  to  the  books  of  Solomon:  "As  the 
Church  reads  the  books  of  Judith  and  Tobias  and  Maccabees,  but 
does  not  receive  them  among  the  canonical  Scriptures,  so  also  it  reads 
Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus  for  the  edification  of  the  people,  not  for 
the  authoritative  confirmation  of  doctrine"  (Westcott's  transl.).  At  first 
Jerome  intended  to  pass  by  the  apocryphal  books  in  his  Biblical  labors, 
but  on  the  entreaty  of  others  he  hastily  revised  Tobias  and  Judith. 

"The  Council  of  Carthage  397  revised  and  ratified  the  decrees  of  an 
earlier  Council  of  Hippo  393  (Augustine's  see),  in  which  the  canon 
had  been  one  of  the  subjects  debated  and  decided.  All  these  African 
Councils  expressly  submitted  their  decisions  to  the  judgment  of  the 
European  Churches  and  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  But  papal  lists,  such 
as  those  of  Innocent  I  and  Gelasius,  which  used  to  be  appealed  to  in 
confirmation  of  the  larger  canon,  are  probably  not  genuine ;  whereas 
Pope  Gregory's  remark  about  Maccabees  (quoted  on  page  581)  gives  a 
papal  verdict  against  the  equality  of  the  Apocrypha.  The  Council 
of  Constantinople  called  the  "Quini-sextine"  or  "Trullan"  (A.  D.  692) 
ratified  the  decrees  of  Carthage  with  their  longer  Augustinian  canon ; 
but  it  also  confirmed  in  the  same  breath  the  shorter  canonical  list 
contained  in  the  so-called  "Apostolical  Constitutions";  and  finally,  by 
erecting  the  canons  of  Athanasius,  Gregory  Nazianzen  and  Amphilo- 
chius  into  unalterable  ecclesiastical  law,  it  sanctioned  also  their  testi- 
mony to  the  shorter  Old  Testament  canon.  Hence  its  voice  is  uncer- 
tain and  appeal  is  no  longer  made  to  it  by  Romanists.  The  canonical 
list  ascribed  to  the  late  Council  of  Florence  (A.  D.  1439)  is  not  found 
in  the  older  collection  of  the  decrees  of  this  Council,  but  only  in  the 
Caranza  collection  of  1633;  there  is  no  evidence  to  prove  that  the 
Council  ever  sanctioned  the  list.  A  canonical  list  printed  at  the  end  of 
the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Laodicea  (A.  D.  363)  is  identical  with 
that  of  Cyril  (see  page  578,  note  28),  but  it  is  undoubtedly  an  early 
interpolation. 


580  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

Councils  of  the  North  African  clergy  in  the  time  of  Augus- 
tine:  Carthage  A.D.  397,  and  Carthage  A.D.  419.  And 
the  only  notable  instance  of  a  Church  Father  who  not 
merely  quotes  from  the  disputed  books  but  expressly  in- 
cludes them  in  a  formal  list,  is  Augustine.  It  will  be  ob- 
served, then,  that  these  three  testimonies  are  in  fact  not 
three  but  one,  inasmuch  as  Augustine's  influence  was  para- 
mount in  these  Councils  of  his  African  fellow-Bishops. 
What  is  to  be  thought  of  this  apparent  contradiction  be- 
tween Augustine  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  mass  of  em- 
phatic testimony  against  cannonicity  on  the  other  hand? 
Does  not  common-sense  suggest  in  advance  the  answer  that 
there  must  be  some  simple  solution  ?^^ 

Let  Cardinal  Cajetan  answer  for  us,  that  famous  scholar 
of  the  1 6th  century  appointed  by  the  Pope  to  argue  against 
Luther.  At  the  end  of  his  commentary  on  the  historical 
books  he  formulates  as  clearly  as  any  Protestant  writer  the 
true  significance  of  Augustine's  canon.  "Here",  he  writes, 
"we  terminate  the  commentaries  on  the  historical  books  of 
the  Old  Testament.  For  the  rest,  (namely  Judith,  Tobias 
and  the  Maccabees),  are  accounted  by  St.  Jerome  as  out- 
side of  the  canonical  books,  and  placed  among  the  Apoc- 
rypha with  Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus,  as  appears  in  the 
Prologiis  Galeatus.  But  be  not  disturbed,  young  scholar,  if 
anywhere  either  in  sacred  Councils  or  in  sacred  Doctors  you 
find  those  books  counted  among  the  canonical.  For  to  the 
correction  of  Jerome  must  be  subjected  the  judgment  both 
of  Councils  and  of  Doctors;  and  according  to  his  opinion 
addressed  to  the  Bishops  Chromatins  and  Heliodorus,  those 
books  (and  any  similar  books  that  may  be  in  the  canon  of 
the  Bible)  are  not  canonical,  that  is,  are  not  a  standard  for 
establishing  matters   of    faith;   nevertheless   they   may   be 

■^Is  it  likely  that  the  Bible  of  the  Church  of  North  Africa  dififered 
radically  from  the  Bible  of  the  rest  of  the  Church,  especially  when  in 
this  very  province  ^&  find  Tertullian  before  Augustine  and  Primasius 
after  Augustine  limiting  the  Old  Testament  to  24  books,  and  when  we 
find  Cyprian  before  Augustine  and  Junilius  after  Augustine  rating  the 
authority  of  some  books  in  their  larger  canon  below  the  authority  of 
other  books? 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  581 

termed  canonical  in  the  sense  that  they  are  standards  for 
the  edification  of  believers,  having  been  for  this  purpose 
received  and  authorized  in  the  canon  of  the  Bible.  With 
this  distinction  you  will  be  able  to  understand  Augustine's 
expressions  and  what  is  written  in  the  Provincial  Council 
of  Carthage."  For  these  natural,  sensible  remarks  the 
learned  Cardinal  was  abused  by  later  Roman  Catholic 
writers, ^*^  but  the  abuse  might  have  been  spared  him  if 
these  words  of  Pope  Gregory  the  Great  had  been  given 
their  due  weight :  "We  do  not  act  unduly,"  he  says,^^  "if 
we  adduce  in  this  connection  testimony  drawn  from  books 
not  canonical,  yet  put  forth  for  the  edification  of  the 
Church,"  and  he  proceeds  to  quote  from  the  Maccabees. 
And  Pope  Gregory  lived  more  than  a  century  after  Augus- 
tine and  his  African  Councils. 

But  there  is  grave  danger  in  such  a  question  that  the  de- 
bate may  degenerate  into  a  mere  strife  about  a  word.  The 
Protestant  feels  no  deep  concern  in  attaching  a  particular 
meaning  to  the  word  "canonical",  no  real  quarrel  with  the 
Romanist  who  prefers  to  call  some  of  the  apocryphal  books 
canonical,  following  a  custom  ancient  and  honorable,  though 
unfortunate.  The  real  point  at  issue  is  of  far  greater  im- 
portance. When  Augustine  and  the  forty-four  Bishops  of 
the  North  African  Church,  when  the  Council  of  Trent, 
when  Catholics  to-day,  call  these  books  canonical,  do  they 
or  do  they  not  mean  that  all  are  equally  the  inspired  Word 
of  God?  Every  Protestant  who  holds  to  the  fundamental 
principle  of  the  Reformation,  the  supreme  authority  of  the 
Word  of  God  as  the  rule  of  faith  and  practise,  is  interested 
to  know  the  limits  of  that  Word  of  God.  He  may  bind  in 
the  same  volume  with  those  sacred  books  a  dozen,  a  score 
or  a  hundred  other  books.  The  old  Geneva  Bible,  the  most 
Protestant  of  all  the  English  versions,  contains  the  Apoc- 
rypha.    But  there  is  a  distinction.     All  are  of  use  for  pur- 


**  For  example,  by  Catharinus,  afterwards  a  member  of  the  Council 
of  Trent,  in  his  "Annotations  on  the  Commentary  by  Cajetan",  book  i. 
"Commentary  on  Job   ("Morals"),  Book  xix,  §  34. 


582  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

poses  of  edification  and  worship;  not  all  are  God's  Word. 
But  to  the  Catholic  Church  of  to-day  all  alike  are  divinely- 
inspired.  Witness  the  deliverance  of  the  Vatican  Council 
of  1870  already  quoted, ^^  with  its  anathema  upon  all  who 
hold  otherwise.  Catholic  writers  have  differed  in  their  in- 
terpretation of  the  Tridentine  decree  on  the  canon,  some 
writers  denying  that  the  Council  intended  not  only  to  admit 
the  disputed  books,  but  also  to  declare  all  equally  canoni- 
cal.^^ Yet  only  those  writers  do  justice  to  the  evident  in- 
tent of  the  decree  of  Trent  who  say,  with  Perrone  :^"  "The 
authority  of  both  classes  of  books,  the  protocanonical  and 
the  deuterocanonical,  is  the  same  in  the  Catholic  Church, 
which  recognizes  no  distinction  among  them." 

On  the  other  hand  hear  Augustine  :'^^  'Tn  the  matter  of 
the  canonical  Scriptures,  let  him  (that  is,  the  student  of  the 
divine  Scriptures)  follow  the  authority  of  the  largest  pos- 
sible number  of  the  Catholic  Churches,  among  which  are 
clearly  those  that  were  held  worthy  of  the  honor  to  possess 
the  Sees  and  receive  the  Epistles  of  the  Apostles.  He  will 
adhere,  therefore,  to  this  principle  in  the  matter  of  the 
canonical  Scriptures,  that  he  should  prefer  those  accepted 
by  all  Catholic  Churches  to  those  that  some  Churches  do 


^  See  page  570,  note  8. 

^  So  Lamy,  "Appar.  ad  Bibl.",  II,  5,  p.  383 ;  Jahn,  "Einleitung  in  die 
gottl.  BUcher  des  alien  Bundes,  2nd  ed.,  Vienna  1802,  pp.  iigff,  i4off; 
Mohler,  "Symholik",  p.  376. 

^  Praelectiones,  Part  II,  Sect,  i,  chap.  i.  Compare  also  the  "Declara- 
tion of  an  Assembly  of  Cardinals  to  Interpret  the  Tridentine  Council" 
(Jan.  17,  1576),  which  sanctioned  the  infallibility  of  every  syllable  and 
every  jot  of  the  Vulgate-text  (Van  Ess,  "Geschichte  der  Vulgata",  pp. 
208-212,  40if). 

"De  doctr.  christ.  ii.  8.  Compare  also  De  civ.  Dei,  xviii.  36,  where 
Augustine  denies  to  II  Maccabees  the  authority  of  Scripture.  The 
Donatist  sect  drew  from  this  book  the  Scriptural  sanction  that  they 
claimed  for  suicide,  but  Augustine  distinctly  places  it  outside  the  canon 
to  which  Christ  gave  His  authoritative  witness ;  however,  on  account 
of  its  narratives  of  heroic  martyrs  "it  is  received  by  the  Church  not 
unprofitably,  if  it  is  read  and  heard  soberly"  (Contra  Gaudentium, 
i.  38).  Are  such  limitations  as  these,  "not  unprofitably"  and  "soberly", 
appropriate  to  any  book  of  the  Hebrew  canon,  the  canon  of  Christ? 
Do  they  not  show  clearly  Augustine's  broad  conception  of  "canonicity"  ? 


THE   ROMAN    CATHOLIC   ENGLISH    BIBLE  583 

not  accept:  and  that  in  the  case  of  the  Scriptures  not  ac- 
cepted by  all,  he  should  prefer  those  accepted  by  Churches 
of  greater  number  or  dignity  to  those  held  by  Churches  of 
less  number  or  authority".  This  weighty  utterance,  which 
immediately  precedes  his  list  of  "the  entire  canon  of  Scrip- 
tures within  which  the  above  principle  is  to  be  applied", 
shows  clearly  the  error  of  those  who  would  have  us  sup- 
pose that  Augustine  is  on  the  side  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  of  to-day  in  the  matter  of  the  canon.  Where  there 
is  perfect  equality  there  can  be  no  preference;  where  there 
is  preference  there  is  no  longer  perfect  equality.  The 
authority  of  Augustine  and  his  Provincial  Councils  may 
justly  be  cited  for  including  the  Apocrypha  in  the  canon; 
it  may  not  be  cited  to  support  the  equality  of  the  books  in 
the  Roman  Catholic  canon,  as  tha<-  doctrine  is  implied  in 
the  decree  of  Trent  and  formulated  by  the  Vatican  Council. 
Generally,  Protestants  go  one  step  further  and  affirm  the 
inadvisability  of  binding  these  disputed  books  in  the  same 
volume  with  the  Word  of  God.  For  the  heresy  of  the 
Roman  Church  of  to-day  is  the  culmination  of  an  historic 
process  that  began  in  this  same  innocent  custom  of  mere 
external  incorporation,  grew  next  into  the  Augustine  cus- 
tom, still  innocent  yet  dangerous,  of  including  the  Apoc- 
rypha in  the  term  "canonical",  passed  next  into  the  indis- 
criminate use  of  all  the  "canonical"  books  as  if  all  were 
equally  the  Word  of  God,  and  ended  by  the  positive  declara- 
tion, capped  with  an  anathema  on  all  dissenters,  that  all 
these  "canonical"  Scriptures  alike,  with  all  their  parts,  are 
sacred  and  divinely  inspired.  If  Church  History  has  lessons 
of  value  for  the  Church  of  to-day,  surely  one  of  them  is, 
that  it  is  better  not  to  print  and  bind  any  apocryphal  books 
with  the  Scriptures  of  our  Lord,  the  Apostles  and  the  early 
Christian  Church. 

The  Text. 

While  the  most  obvious  difference  between  the  Catholic 
Bible  and  the  Bibles  with  which  the  Protestant  is  familiar 


584  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

is  in  their  canon,  the  most  sitrprising  difference  is  that  which 
lies  in  their  text. 

To  the  average  man  Genesis  is  just  Genesis,  and  Matthew 
is  just  Matthew.  The  mere  suggestion  of  "various  read- 
ings" is  for  him  a  perplexity;  when  he  learns  that  these 
variations  mount  up  into  the  tens  of  thousands  he  is  con- 
founded. Yet  how  could  the  centuries  during  which  his 
Bible  was  transmitted  to  him  through  the  manual  toil  of 
innumerable  copyists,  many  ignorant,  all  fallible,  fail  to 
leave  their  stamp  upon  the  sacred  text  in  mistaken  words, 
distorted  phrases,  errors  of  eye,  of  ear,  of  hand,  omissions, 
transpositions,  additions,  even  a  few  intentional  alterations  ? 
After  due  reflection  on  all  these  possible  sources  of  corrup- 
tion through  the  long  ages  of  manuscripts,  and  after  com- 
parison of  the  condition  of  the  Biblical  text  with  the  text  of 
classical  authors,  it  is  probable  that  the  first  feeling  of  con- 
sternation will  change  to  wonder — a  wonder  now  no  longer 
that  there  are  myriads  of  various  readings,  but  that  there  are 
no  more  than  there  are,  and  particularly  that  they  are  so 
comparatively  trivial  as  to  leave  the  entire  body  of  Biblical 
doctrine  and  history  unaffected  by  the  issue. 

Comparatively  trivial;  yes,  for  what  Christian,  Catholic 
or  Protestant,  can  regard  the  preservation  and  restoration 
of  the  sacred  text  as  quite  trivial?  Though  no  fundamen- 
tal truths  of  his  religion  are  at  stake,  yet  the  words  of  divine 
utterance  are  not  as  man's  words.  If  scholars  devote  their 
lives  to  the  toilsome  task  of  establishing  the  genuine  text  of 
a  Greek  tragedian  or  a  Latin  historian,  what  excuse  could 
the  Church  of  to-day  find  to  give  to  her  Lord,  if  she  used 
less  than  her  highest  skill,  learning,  patience  and  industry, 
in  restoring  the  very  words  of  Prophet  and  Apostle,  and  of 
Him  who  "spake  as  never  man  spake" ! 

With  all  the  progress  of  theological  studies  during  the 
past  century  or  two,  it  is  safe  to  assert  that  no  department 
has  made  more  rapid  strides  than  that  of  textual  criticism. 
Indeed  before  that  time  there  seems  scarcely  to  have  been 
a  textual  criticism  worthy  of  the  name.    The  Biblical  schol- 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  585 

ars  of  the  i6th  and  17th  centuries,  both  Cathohc  and  Prot- 
estant, hardly  saw  the  outhnes  of  the  problem  facing  them. 
As  textual  critics,  Erasmus,  Ximenes  and  Beza  are  dwarfed 
by  contrast  even  with  Origen,  Lucian  and  Jerome  of  the 
ancient  Church.  We  may  say  that  in  part  it  was  the  fault 
of  the  time :  a  Tischendorf  had  yet  to  discover,  a  Vercellone 
to  publish,  a  Hort  to  classify,  and  many  others  to  contrib- 
ute their  share  of  aid,  before  the  materials  of  criticism 
should  be  available  for  use.  But  also  in  part  it  was  the 
fault  of  those  earlier  scholars  themselves,  who  lacked  the 
scientific  principles  and  methods,  without  which  even  all 
the  material  now  available  would  be  a  meaningless  mass. 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  we  at  the  present  day 
are  far  from  seeing  the  completion  of  the  great  task  of 
undoing  the  mischief  of  the  centuries.  Not  only  are  the 
original  autographs  of  the  sacred  writers  unfound  and  be- 
yond all  hope  of  finding,  but  certainty  as  to  their  exact  text, 
the  goal  of  textual  criticism,  is  yet  unattainable.  This  is 
especially  true  in  the  Old  Testament  books,  where  the  prob- 
lem presents  features  of  peculiar  difficulty.  In  the  New 
Testament  there  is  a  bewildering  multiplicity  of  readings 
of  great  antiquity,  drawn  from  Greek  manuscripts,  from 
ancient  versions,  and  from  quotations  by  the  Fathers.  But 
in  the  Old  Testament  there  is  an  almost  complete  uniformity 
in  the  Hebrew  manuscripts,  which  are  all  late ;  there  is  only 
one  version,  the  Septuagint,  really  ancient,  and  the  text  of 
this  stands  in  as  great  need  of  purification  as  the  text  of  the 
New  Testament,  yet  with  fewer  materials  for  its  accom- 
plishment ;  and  finally,  there  are  very  few  ancient  quotations. 

Keeping  in  view  both  the  progress  already  made  and 
the  problems  yet  to  be  solved,  in  what  spirit  ought  the  Chris- 
tian of  to-day  to  approach  the  subject  of  the  Biblical  text? 
The  following  principles  ought  to  command  the  immediate 
assent  of  all  who  value  the  Bible  as  the  Word  of  God.  (i ) 
Biblical  scholarship  should  make  every  effort  to  ascertain 
as  nearly  as  possible  the  very  words  of  the  original  authors. 
(2)  Our  Bibles  should  be  purged  of  every  element  that  by 


586  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

the  gradual  progress  of  the  science  of  textual  criticism  is 
demonstrated  to  be  a  corruption.  (3)  Wherever  the  evi- 
dence is  not  sufficiently  decisive  to  demonstrate  which  is  the 
original  reading,  our  Bibles  should  present  to  their  readers, 
by  means  of  marginal  notes,  the  most  important  variations. 

Passing  from  these  considerations  to  our  investigation 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Bible,  the  contrast  would  be  amusing 
if  it  were  not  so  serious. 

In  the  Douai  Bible  we  are  still  in  the  atmosphere  of  the 
1 6th  century.  It  would  be  unfair  to  say,  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  for  Gregory  Martin  and  his  Rhemish  brethren  were 
no  mean  scholars,  and  those  are  no  idle  boasts  on  the  title- 
pages  of  their  version :  "diligently  conferred  with  the 
Greek",  "diligently  conferred  with  the  Hebrew,  Greek  and 
other  Editions".  Vigorously  as  they  defend  the  Latin  Vul- 
gate in  their  prefaces,  and  closely  as  they  adhere  to  it  in 
their  entire  work,  they  nevertheless  produce  a  version  quite 
different  from  Wicklif's,  for  example,  or  that  of  any  other 
translator  who  had  only  the  Latin  and  not  the  original 
tongues  before  him.  Yet  if  we  decline  to  do  injustice  to  the 
men  of  Douai  by  exaggerating  their  dependence  on  the  Vul- 
gate, we  are  the  more  emphatic  in  characterizing  this  Cath- 
olic version  a  Bible  of  the  i6th  century.  The  basis  of  the 
text  of  the  Douai  Bibles  circulated  to-day  is  still  the  same  as 
that  of  the  first  editions.  The  prefaces  have  been  omitted, 
the  English  rendering  has  been  considerably  modernized  and 
even  assimilated  to  the  phraseology  of  the  Authorized  Ver- 
sion, and  the  marginal  notes  have  been  toned  down.  All 
these  are  improvements.  But  the  text  itself  is  the  same. 
All  the  progress  of  the  centuries  between  is  unrecorded  for 
the  Catholic  reader.*^ 

*^The  estimate  of  these  later  editions  of  the  Douai  Bible,  ("most  im- 
properly so  called",  according  to  Mgr.  Ward  in  art.  "Douay  Bible"  in 
the  Catholic  Encyclopedia),  expressed  by  the  distinguished  English 
Cardinal  Wiseman,  (Essays,  vol.  i,  pp.73-100),  is  anything  but  favor- 
able. "So  far  as  simplicity  and  energy  of  style  are  concerned,  the 
changes  are  generally  for  the  worse."  "Challoner's  alterations  were 
far  from  giving  stability  to  the  text."  He  calls  for  a  definite  revision 
conducted  by   competent   scholars,   and   endeavors   to   show   the   great 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  587 

Thus  far  in  general.  More  particularly,  the  "type  of 
text"  represented  by  the  Catholic  Bible  calls  for  remarks. 

The  basis  of  the  Douai  text  is  avowedly  and  actually 
"the  old  vulgar  approved  Latin",  "the  authentical  Latin  ac- 
cording to  the  best  corrected  copies  of  the  same."  Not  only 
do  the  men  of  Douai  in  their  prefaces  announce  and  defend 
this  their  position  while  attacking  the  text  used  by  Pro- 
testant translators,  but  they  even  throw  down  this  bold  chal- 
lenge :  "What  then  do  our  countrymen  that  refuse  this  Latin 
but  deprive  themselves  of  the  best?"  Even  in  our  own  day 
we  find  some  Catholic  writers  maintaining  the  same  posi- 
tion. Thus  Heinrich,  the  German  theologian  -.'^^  "Li  declar- 
ing the  Vulgate  authentic,  the  Council  of  Trent  did  a  thing 


need  of  it.  This  paper  was  called  forth  by  the  publication  of  Dr. 
Lingard's  "revision"  of  the  Rhemish  Gospels,  but  extended  in  its 
suggestions  far  beyond  the  limits  of  an  ordinary  review.  It  is  interest- 
ing, as  furnishing  a  fair  estimate  of  what  ought  to  have  been  done, 
but  has  not  been  done,  in  the  direction  of  improving  and  iixing 
the  form  of  the  modern  English  Catholic  Bible.  "Our  principal  object 
at  present",  he  writes  (p.  79),  "is  to  turn  the  attention  of  the  Catholic 
clergy,  and  particularly  the  Bishops  of  Ireland  and  the  Vicars  Apos- 
tolic of  England  and  Scotland,  to  the  want  of  a  complete  revision 
of  the  [Douai]  version  itself,  for  the  purpose  of  settling  a  standard 
text,  from  which  editors  in  future  will  not  be  allowed  to  depart  .  .  . 
It  is  far  from  our  purpose  to  undertake  a  complete  exposure  of  the 
many  passages  which  want  emendation — such  a  task  would  require  a 
treatise.  In  order  to  confine  ourselves  within  reasonable  limits,  we 
will  only  consider  the  necessity  which  a  new  revision  would  impose  on 
those  who  should  undertake  it,  of  a  minute  and  often  complicated 
study  of  the  original  texts.  We  have  selected  this  view  of  the  matter, 
because  we  think  it  the  ponit  most  neglected  in  the  past,  and  most 
likely  to  be  overlooked,  and  to  form  the  great  stumbling-block  in  any 
future  revision.  For,  at  first  sight,  it  must  appear  an  almost  super- 
fluous task  to  proceed,  in  such  an  undertaking,  beyond  the  accurate 
study  of  the  work  immediately  translated.  The  Vulgate  is  written 
in  Latin,  and  it  would  therefore  appear  sufficient  to  possess  an  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  Latin  language,  in  order  to  translate  any  work 
written  in  it  into  our  own.  It  is  our  wish  to  prove  the  fallacy  of  such 
reasoning,  and,  on  the  contrary,  to  show  what  varied,  and  often  deli- 
cate, questions  of  philology  the  translation  may  involve;  and  how 
impossible  it  is  to  correct  or  discover  the  mistakes  of  our  Douai 
version,  without  a  constant  recourse  to  the  original  Hebrew  and  Greek 
texts.  The  object  of  such  reference  will  be,  to  decide  the  true  mean- 
ing of  expressions  obscure  or  doubtful  in  the  Latin." 


58S  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

which  no  doubt  is  easily  exphcable  from  the  ecclesiastical 
standpoint  and  according  to  the  Catholic  principle  of  tradi- 
tion ;  but  at  the  same  time  its  choice  was  from  the  scientific- 
critical  standpoint  the  best.  For  critical  science  has  steadily- 
become  more  and  more  convinced  that  the  text  of  the  Vul- 
gate is  on  the  whole  the  best  and  most  trustworthy  text, 
surpassing  not  only  other  versions  but  even  the  existing 
original-texts**  in  correctness  and  trutworthiness :  for  evi- 
dently there  stood  at  the  command  of  the  framers  of  the 
Itala,  as  of  St.  Jerome,  far  older  and  better  original-texts 
than  the  oldest  and  best  of  the  manuscripts  preserved  to  us, 
even  as  a  similar  fact  is  true  of  the  text  of  the  Septuagint 
received  by  the  Church,  over  against  the  Massora  that  is 
often  influenced  by  Jewish  polemic." 

Beside  this  boast,  put  this  admission  of  the  same  writer  :*' 
"By  no  means  is  the  possibility  of  textual  errors  and  mis- 
takes in  translation  hereby  excluded,  in  matters  that  do  not 
touch  Christian  doctrine  of  faith  and  morals". 

The  best,  then,  without  being  perfect — this  is  precisely 
what  many  Catholics  claim  for  their  Latin  text  declared 
"authentic"  by  the  Council  of  Trent.  We  say,  many;  for 
there  are  other  Catholic  writers  who  are  more  distrustful 
of  the  Vulgate.  Nearly  a  century  ago,  Leander  van  Ess,  a 
Catholic  priest  and  professor  at  Marburg,  published  an  ex- 
tended treatise  on  the  history  of  the  Vulgate,  whose  double 
object  was  to  show  his  fellow-churchmen  that  "the  Catholic 
is  not  legally  bound  to  the  Vulgate",  and  that  the  Vulgate 
of  to-day  is  a  badly  corrupted  form  of  a  mixture  of  faulty 
translations  made  in  large  part  from  a  degenerate  text. 

In  the  light  of  the  further  textual  studies  of  the  last 
century,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  van  Ess's  verdict  on  the 
value  of  the  Vulgate**^  can  be  disputed  by  any  unprejudiced 

^"Dogmatik",  vol.  i,  p.  82of. 

"  By  "original-texts"  this  writer  means  the  text  in  the  original  lan- 
guages, Hebrew  in  the  Old  Testament  and  Greek  in  the  New. 

"^"Dognwtik",  p.  824. 

"  The  distinction  should  always  be  observed,  between  a  good  text  in 
the  absolute  and  ecclesiastical  sense,  and  a  valuable  text  from  the 
standpoint   of   the  textual   critic.     For   example,   the   New   Testament 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  589 

thinker.  A  few  paragraphs  will  suffice  to  show  the  basis 
of  this  unfavorable  estimate  of  the  current  Vulgate-text. 

(i)  Its  history  has  been  a  career  of  increasing  corrup- 
tion, only  aggravated  by  repeated  attempts  to  correct  it, 
"On  account  of  its  constant  and  frequent  use,  it  has  had 
as  many  and  as  unfortunate  experiences  as  other  manu- 
scripts and  books  have  had,  and  from  its  very  cradle  it  has 
been  so  uncritically  handled  in  even  its  better  parts  that 
later  attempts  at  improvement  have  not  been  able,  and  will 
not  be  able,  to  restore  it  to  purity.""'"^ 

(2)  The  circumstances  of  its  origin  were  not  favorable 
for  producing  a  faithful  version.  Briefly,  these  circum- 
stances were  as  follows. 

The  Old  Latin  version,  at  least  in  its  African  form,  dated 
back  to  the  2nd  century,  as  quotations  by  Tertullian  and 
Cyprian  prove.  Besides  this  African  version,  there  existed 
one  or  more  versions  or  revisions  current  in  Europe  in  the 
3d  and  4th  centuries.^^  These  became  so  mixed  and  the 
confusion  of  text  thereby  produced  became  so  great,  that 
Augustine  believed  there  must  have  been  innumerable  in- 


text  of  Tischendorf's  famous  manuscript  Aleph  is  an  exceedingly  valu- 
able text,  but  it  is  not  a  good  text  to  put  into  the  hands  of  the  Church 
as  her  New  Testament.  A  textual  critic,  for  his  scientific  purposes, 
prefers  a  manuscript  embodying  a  degenerate  text,  even  an  almost 
unintelligible  text,  which  has  escaped  some  ecclesiastical  recension,  to 
another  manuscript  that  reflects  that  recension,  even  though  this  latter 
be  more  ancient,  more  homogeneous,  and  altogether  better  adapted 
for  ecclesiastical  use.  Illustrations  might  be  drawn  from  the  history 
of  almost  any  of  the  versions.  In  the  case  of  the  Latin  version,  the 
current  Vulgate  has  preserved  in  the  New  Testament  many  a  reading 
derived  from  the  Old  Latin  text,  and  thus  representing  the  Greek  text 
of  the  2nd  century;  here  lies  its  value  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
textual  critic.  But  in  the  same  chapter  with  sitch  a  critical  prize  as 
one  of  these  readings,  there  may  stand  some  worthless  interpolation  or 
scribal  corruption  that  mars  the  version  for  Church  purposes.  In  a 
word,  the  critic  can  pick  the  good  and  leave  the  bad;  the  Church  has  to 
take  all  indiscriminately. 

*^Van  Ess,  "Geschickte  der  Vulgata",  p.  472f. 

**  Scholars  are  still  uncertain  as  to  the  exact  relationship  of  the  three 
different  types  of  Old  Latin,  which  it  is  customary  to  designate  as  the 
African,  the  European  and  the  Italian.  This  at  least  is  their  true 
chronological  order. 


590  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

dependent  translators,^^  and  Jerome  could  say/*^  "there  are 
almost  as  many  versions  as  manuscripts".  To  remedy  this 
intolerable  state  of  affairs  Jerome,  at  the  request  of  Pope 
Damasus  (about  382),  set  himself  to  bring  order  out  of  the 
chaos.  His  first  work  was  the  revision  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, beginning-  with  the  Gospels.  He  next  produced  two 
editions  of  the  Psalter,  one  revised  according  to  that  text 
of  the  Septuagint  which  was  commonly  current  in  the 
Church,  and  the  other  according  to  the  corrected  text  of 
Origen's  great  critical  edition  of  the  Old  Testament  known 
as  the  Hexapla.  Then  Jerome  revised,  with  the  help  of  the 
Hexapla,  the  books  of  Job,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Song  of 
Solomon,  Chronicles,  and  probably  all  the  Old  Testament.^ ^ 
Of  the  Apocrypha  he  rendered  Tobias,  Judith,  and  the  addi- 
tions to  Esther  and  Daniel.  Finally — the  crowning  achieve- 
ment of  this  ancient  Biblical  scholar — Jerome  issued  a  fresh 
translation  of  the  Old  Testament  made  directly  from  the 
Hebrew  original. 

Not  all  these  labors  found  complete  or  unanimous  accep- 
tance. Ruffinus  and  other  men  of  influence  were  uncom- 
promisingly opposed  to  Jerome  and  his  work.  Even  Augus- 
tine, with  his  more  profound  but  less  critical  mind,  failed 
for  a  time  to  understand  and  appreciate.  The  various  parts 
of  Holy  Scripture  thus  translated  or  revised  were  received 
differently:  some  readily,  as  the  New  Testament  revision, 
some  slowly,  as  the  so-called  "Gallican"  Psalter  (that  re- 
vised from  the  Hexapla),  and  some  not  at  all,  as  the  Psalter 

*"  De  doctr.  christ.,  ii.  ir. 

**  Preface  to  the  Four  Gospels,  addressed  to  Damasus.  "Tot  sunt 
emm  exemphria  penc  quot  codices."  As  Van  Ess  urges,  p.  16,  Jerome 
must  have  intended  by  cxemplaria  something  more  than  mere  corrup- 
tions in  the  codices.  Whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  Jerome  had  in 
mind  nothing  less  than  divergent  texts. 

"Compare  the  expression  in  the  well-known  passage  (Comm.  in 
Tihim  c.  Ill),  "pmncs  veteris  legis  Ubros  emendare".  If  this  "all" 
is.  literally  true,  the  rest  of  the  books  so  revised  have  been  lost;  but  then, 
Jerome  complains  to  Augustine  of  this  very  thing:  "Pleraque  prions 
laboris  amisimns" . 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  59I 

translated  from  the  Hebrew.^^  Side  by  side  with  these  prod- 
ucts of  Jerome's  scholarship,  there  lived  on  in  the  Church 
for  centuries  the  Old  Latin  versions,  until  at  length,  by  the 
7th  century,  the  great  reviser's  triumph  was  complete, 
though  dearly  bought  by  much  admixture  of  elements  incor- 
porated from  the  earlier  versions. 

The  Vulgate  declared  authentic  by  the  Council  of  Trent, 
"that  old  and  vulgar  edition  which  has  been  approved  by 
long  use  through  so  many  centuries  in  the  Church",  the  Vul- 
gate of  the  official  Clementine  edition,  is  made  up,  therefore, 
of  the  following  heterogeneous  elements : 

The  Old  Testament  translated  from  the  Hebrew  by 
Jerome,  but  with  considerable  importations  from  the  Old 
Latin  versions  and  from  Jerome's  own  earlier  revisions  ac- 
cording to  the  Greek  (notably  the  entire  Psalter,  which  is 
his  second  revision,  according  to  the  Hexaplaric  text). 

The  Apocrypha,  partly  from  Jerome's  version,  partly 
from  the  Old  Latin  versions. 

The  New  Testament  according  to  Jerome's  restricted 
revision  of  the  old  versions.^^ 

Such  being,  in  brief,  the  origin  of  the  Vulgate,  it  is  not 
hard  to  see  how  unfavorable  were  the  conditions  for  attain- 
ing the  best  possible  Latin  text.  Damasus,  in  whose  pon- 
tificate Jerome  commenced  his  task,  died  in  384.  The  Old 
Testament  translation  was  not  finished  until  405.  During 
all  that  time,  as  we  learn  from  his  letters,  Jerome's  work 
was  being  issued,  frequently  (so  he  says)  snatched  up  be- 

"  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  those  parts  of  Jerome's  work  which  the 
Church  received  apparently  with  the  greatest  readiness,  were  just  the 
parts  that  were  latest  in  finding  universal  acceptance.  On  the  contrary, 
his  Old  Testament  from  the  Hebrew,  against  which  the  whole  Church 
at  first  seemed  to  be  arrayed,  attained  general  currency  far  earlier 
than  his  New  Testament  revision,  and  as  a  consequence  the  former 
escaped  much  of  the  corruption  that  overtook  the  latter  through  long- 
continued  use  side  by  side  with  the  Old  Latin. 

■'^How  restricted  this  revision  was,  may  be  learned  from  what  is 
said  below  of  the  ecclesiastical  criticism  that  Jerome  dreaded,  and  like- 
wise from  many  expressions  in  his  works,  such  as  the  following: 
"Ut  his  tantum,  quae  sensiim  videbantur  mutare,  correciis,  reliqua 
manere  pateremur,  ut  fuerunt"    (from  the   Preface   to   the   Gospels). 


592  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL   REVIEW 

fore  he  was  through  with  its  correction.  Long  passages 
were  often  executed  in  incredible  haste.  Proverbs,  Ecclesi- 
astes  and  the  Song  of  Solomon  were  completed  in  three 
days,  Tobit  in  one  day ;  "sometimes",  he  writes,  "I  reach  the 
total  of  a  thousand  verses  a  day".^*  He  used  an  amanuen- 
sis.^^ His  eyesight  was  feeble.^®  Many  Hebrew  words  he 
failed  to  understand.  For  his  Latin  Jerome  himself  apolo- 
gizes '^"^  "I  beg  of  you,  reader,  not  to  demand  that  finished 
style  which  through  long  study  of  the  Hebrew  tongue  I 
have  lost." 

But  the  greatest  hindrance  of  all  to  an  exact  version  was 
the  stubbornness  of  the  Latin  Church  in  holding  to  what 
was  familiar  even  though  wrong.  This  prevented  Jerome 
from  exercising  to  the  full  his  critical  gifts  or  using  the 
critical  material  that  he  possessed.  Again  and  again  he  com- 
plains of  this  opposition  to  all  change;  indeed  it  was  only 
the  same  spirit  of  obscurantism  and  envy  of  superior  learn- 
ing that  culminated  in  the  bitter  invectives  of  Ruffinus,  Pal- 
ladius  and  his  other  personal  enemies.  He  undertook  the 
New  Testament  revision  and  all  his  earlier  work  in  this  fear 
of  offending.  The  well-known  passage  in  his  preface  to  the 
Gospels  addressed  to  Damasus  shows  the  rigor  and  ignor- 
ance of  the  criticism  he  dreaded:  "Who  is  there,"  he  asks, 
"learned  or  unlearned,  that  will  not  break  out  with  charges 
of  forgery  and  sacrilege,  if  I  dare  to  add,  alter  or  amend 
anything  in  the  ancient  books?"  This  applies  to  his  earlier 
work.  But  that  the  same  dread  affected  even  his  latest 
work,  his  Old  Testament  translation,  is  shown  where  he 
says  of  it  :^^  "Following  the  old  interpretation,  we  have  been 
unwilling  to  change  anything  that  was  not  doing  actual 
harm." 

(3)  But,  besides  the  history  of  the  Vulgate,  and  the  cir- 

"Comm.  on  Eph.,  book  ii   (at  the  beginning). 

**  Comm.  on  Gal.,  book  iii  (at  the  beginning)  :  "propter  oculorum  et 
totius  corpusculi  infirmitatem,  manu  mea  ipse  non  scriho." 

"■  On  Ezekiel,  xx. 

"  On  Haggai,  at  the  end. 

°'  Epist.  to  Sun.  and  Fretel.,  he  writes :  "De  Hebraeo  transferens 
magis  me  LXX  interpretum  consuetudine  captavi." 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  593 

cumstances  attending  its  origin,  there  is  one  other  reason  for 
the  unfavorable  verdict  passed  upon  it.  The  Greek  texts 
from  which  much  of  it  was  made  were  corrupt. 

In  the  New  Testament  there  stood  at  Jerome's  command 
a  good  Greek  text.  But  it  was  particularly  in  the  New 
Testament  that  Jerome  was  bound  most  closely  to  the  Latin 
text  already  current  in  the  Church.  Now  these  Old  Latin 
versions  were  early  in  their  origin,  and  for  purposes  of 
textual  criticism  to-day  they  rank  very  high  as  a  means  of 
confirming  the  earliest  readings  of  the  best  Greek  manu- 
scripts. But  as  current  in  the  Church  in  Jerome's  day, 
these  did  not  present  what  could  in  any  sense  be  called 
a  good  text.  They  were  faulty  in  three  ways,  through 
errors  in  translation,  errors  in  transmission,  and  mixture 
with  one  another.  The  Fathers  frequently  point  out  their 
shortcomings.  Jerome's  and  Augustine's  complaints  of 
them  are  well-known.  Hilary's  complaint  is  less  often 
quoted  :^^  "The  Latin  translation,  ignorant  of  the  real  force 
of  what  is  said,  has  introduced  great  obscurity,  not  dis- 
cerning the  right  meaning  of  an  ambiguous  expression." 
And  Tertullian^^  punningly  calls  the  current  version  an 
"eversion",  so  completely  does  it  destroy  the  force  of  the 
original.  Yet  it  was  to  this  Old  Latin  text  that  Jerome  must 
needs  adhere  in  his  New  Testament,  altering  as  little  as 
possible  and  curbing  his  critical  powiers  lest  he  offend 
through  novelty.^^ 

In  the  Old  Testament  there  existed  three  different  texts 
among  which  the  Latin  translator  might  choose  his  original : 
the  Hebrew,  the  old  Greek  Septuagint,  and  the  Greek  text 
of  Origen's  Hexapla,  with  its  asterisks  and  obelisks  to  in- 
dicate divergences  between  the  Hebrew  and  the  Septuagint 
readings.     As  has  been  seen,  Jerome  made  use  of  each  of 


^*  Tract,  in  Psalm.  138  (43),  quoted  by  Van  Ess,  p.  9. 

*"  De  monogam.,  c.  xi,  quoted  by  Van  Ess,  p.  9. 

'^Jerome  says  that  he  selected  for  his  revision  of  the  Gospels  Greek 
manuscripts  "that  were  old,  but  did  not  differ  much  from  the  form 
of  the  Latin  text".  "Veterum,  nee  quae  multum  a  lectionis  latinae  con- 
stietudinis  discreparent"   (from  Preface  to  Gospels). 


594  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

these  at  different  times.  Where  he  used  the  first,  the  He- 
brew, he  had  before  him  ahnost  precisely  the  same  text  as 
that  of  our  Hebrew  Bibles  to-day,  a  good  text,  altogether  the 
best  attainable  even  with  the  means  now  at  our  command 
or  then  at  the  command  of  Jerome.*'^  Where  he  used  the 
Septuagint,  he  had  but  a  corrupted  text,  vitiated  by  cen- 
turies of  transmission,  and  even  in  its  best  state  often  unin- 
telligible in  Psalm  and  Prophet.  It  was  undoubtedly  due 
to  its  inherent  obscurity  that  the  "Roman"  Psalter  (that 
made  first  and  from  the  Septuagint),  "was  soon  corrupted 
by  scribes  and  became  more  defective  than  the  former  un- 
revised  text".^^  Finally,  where  Jerome  used  the  Hexaplaric 
Greek  text,  he  had  one  that  was  theoretically  good,  but 
practically  the  worst  of  all.  Both  in  the  Greek  and  in  the 
Latin  manuscripts,  the  asterisks  and  obelisks  became  hope- 
lessly displaced  through  the  error,  ignorance  or  indifference 
of  the  scribes,  and  "the  last  state  was  worse  than  the  first". 
While  intending  the  best  for  the  Biblical  text,  Origen  actual- 
ly introduced  more  confusion  that  that  which  he  set  about 
his  laborious  task  to  remedy.  The  obscurity  of  the  Psalter 
in  the  Vulgate  of  to-day,  and  in  the  Douai  Version  made 
from  it,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  the  Old  Latin  Psalter 
of  the  first  ages  of  the  Church,  translated  originally  from 
the  Septuagint  manuscripts  current  in  the  Western  Church, 
then  revised  in  accordance  with  the  Hexapla,  then  mixed 
with  readings  from  Jerome's  earlier  Psalter,  and  finally 
corrupted  by  scribal  errors  through  centuries  of  transmis- 
sion in  the  Latin.  ^^ 


"^  The  old  charges  of  intentional  Jewish  corruptions,  pressed  by- 
earlier  Catholic  writers,  have  long  since  been  exploded,  unless  possibly 
in  one  or  two  passages. 

"^  Van  Ess,  p.  105,  who  quotes  Jerome's  Prologue  to  Psalm  ii : 
"Quod  rursum  videtis  scriptorum  vitio  depravatum,  plusque  antiquum 
errorem,  quam  novavi  emendationem  valere." 

"What  wonder,  then,  is  it  that  we  find  in  the  Douai  Psalter  such 
monstrosities  as  the  following: 

Ps.  Ixv  (Ixiv).  ID  (11),  for  "Thou  makest  it  soft  with  showers: 
Thou  blessest  the  springing  thereof," 

Douai  reads :     "Inebriate  her  rivers ;  in  her  drops  so  she  shall  re- 
joice springing". 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  595 

In  the  light  of  these  historical  facts,  drawn  from  the 
writings  of  the  Fathers,  confirmed  by  examination  of  the 
Vulgate  itself,  and  marshalled  by  a  Catholic  writer,  what 
is  to  be  said  of  Heinrich's  boast  quoted  above,  that  in  the 
Vulgate  we  have  "on  the  whole  the  best  and  most  trust- 
worthy text,  surpassing  not  only  other  versions,  but  even 
the  existing  original-texts  in  correctness  and  trustworthi- 
ness?" 

Such  then  is  the  text  that  formed  the  basis  of  the  Douai 
Version.  The  comparison  of  it  with  the  Hebrew  and  Greek 
originals  was,  as  has  been  remarked,  no  idle  boast,  for  evi- 
dences are  forthcoming  throughout,  but  particularly  in  the 
New  Testament,  that  these  translators  felt  free  to  have  re- 
course to  the  Greek  because  of  the  multiplicity  of  Latin 
readings.^^  "We  bind  not  ourselves",  say  they,  "to  the 
points  of  any  one  copy,  print  or  edition  of  the  vulgar  Latin, 
in  places  of  no  controversy,  but  follow  the  pointing  most 
agreeable  to  the  Greek  and  to  the  Fathers'  commentaries." 
"We  translate  sometime  the  word  that  is  in  the  Latin  mar- 
gin, and  not  that  in  the  text,  when  by  the  Greek  or  the 
Fathers  we  see  it  is  a  manifest  fault  of  the  writers  hereto- 


Ps.  Ixviii  (Ixvii).  15  (16),  "A  mountain  of  God  is  the  mountain  of 
Bashan;    A  high  mountain  is  the  mountain  of  Bashan." 

Douai  reads :     "A  mountain  crudded  as  cheese,  a  fat  mountain." 

Ps.  Ixxii  (Ixxi).  16,  "There  shall  be  abundance  (margin,  a  handful) 
of  grain  in  the  earth  upon  the  top  of  the  mountains." 

Douai  reads :    "There  shall  be  a  firmament  in  the  earth  in  the  tops 
of  the  mountains." 

(From  Eadie,  "The  English  Bible",  vol.  ii.,  p.  144,  where  see' numer- 
ous other  examples.) 

"  Bellarmine,  the  leading  Jesuit  theologian  of  the  i6th  century, 
allows  recourse  to  the  text  in  the  original  tongues  under  these  four 
conditions:  when  the  Latin  text  (i)  seems  to  show  an  error  of  copy- 
ists; (2)  exhibits  uncertainty  of  reading  through  variation  in  the 
Latin  codices;  (3)  contains  an  expression  of  double  signification;  or 
(4)  may  receive  a  fuller  understanding  by  comparison  of  the  original. 
It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  first  edition  of  the  Rhemish  Testa- 
ment (1582)  appeared  a  decade  before  the  publication  of  those  official 
editions  of  the  Vulgate  which  had  been  called  for  by  the  Council  of 
Trent.  The  New  Testament  text  of  the  Douai  Bible  (1609-10),  how- 
ever, is  said  to  be  conformed  to  the  text  of  the  official  Clementine 
Vulgate. 


596  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

fore,  that  mistook  one  word  for  another."  In  a  word,  their 
practice  was  better  than  their  theory,  for,  as  has  been  well 
pointed  out,  their  "critical  rules  and  opinions  are  character- 
ized by  a  peculiar  lubricity.  Their  statement  is  that  the 
Latin  does  usually  agree  with  the  Greek  text;  that  any  dis- 
agreement is  often  found  to  be  coincident  with  some  old 
copy,  'as  may  be  seen  in  Stephens'  margin',  and  that  the 
adversaries  sometimes  accept  such  marginal  readings;  that 
where  Greek  copies  exhibit  a  different  text,  the  Vulgate  is 
found  to  agree  with  patristic  quotations;  that  emendations 
may  be  resorted  to  if  such  authority  be  wanting,  or  recourse 
may  be  had  to  the  Latin  Fathers,  and  if  in  this  appeal  dis- 
crepancy should  be  found,  the  blame  is  to  be  laid  to  'the 
great  diversity  and  multitude'  of  Latin  copies.  So  that  in 
this  easy  and  incoherent  way  of  moving  from  post  to  pillar, 
as  often  as  their  position  is  felt  to  be  untenable,  the  superi- 
ority of  the  Latin  translation  to  the  Greek  original  is  dem- 
onstrated."^^ 

The  Version. 

The  most  immediately  obvious  difference  which  the  Prot- 
estant notices  between  the  Catholic  Bible  and  his  own  Bible 
is  in  their  canon;  the  most  surprising  difference  is  in  their 
text ;  the  most  pervasive  and  characteristic  difference  is  to  be 
found  in  the  motives  and  methods  of  their  version,  that  is, 
in  the  actual  work  of  translating  into  the  English  tongue 
their  respective  originals. 

The  motives  and  methods  of  translators  may  be  com- 
pared both  abstractly,  as  formulated  in  the  principles  avowed 
in  their  prefaces  and  other  explanatory  writings,  and  con- 
cretely, as  exhibited  in  their  practice,  their  actual  produc- 
tions. As  just  intimated,  the  translators  of  the  Catholic 
Bible  differ  from  the  translators  of  the  Protestant  Bible  in 
both  motives  and  methods,  both  avowed  principles  and  evi- 
dent practice. 

First,  their  motives. 

The  long  prefaces  originally  published  with  the  Rheims 

"Eadie,  vol.  ii.,  p.  128. 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  59/ 

New  Testament  and  the  Douai  Old  Testament  set  forth  the 
intention  of  those  EngHsh  exiles  who,  "having  compassion 
to  see  our  beloved  countrymen,  with  extreme  danger  of  their 
souls,  use  only  such  profane  translations,  and  erroneous 
men's  mere  phantasies,  for  the  pure  and  blessed  word  of 
truth,  much  also  moved  thereunto  by  the  desires  of  many 
devout  persons:  have  set  forth,  for  you  (benign  readers) 
the  New  Testament  to  begin  withal,  trusting  that  it  may 
give  occasion  to  you,  after  diligent  perusing  thereof,  to  lay 
away  at  least  such  of  their  impure  versions  as  hitherto  you 
have  been  forced  to  occupy."  Now  the  many  sections  of 
these  prefaces  devoted  to  an  elaborate  attack  upon  the  gen- 
eral circulation  of  vernacular  Bibles  seem  to  prepare  the  way 
but  ill  for  any  vernacular  Bible,  but  they  at  least  serve  this 
purpose :  to  underscore  with  a  hundred-fold  emphasis  this 
statement  of  motive  when  at  length  it  is  given.  The  evident 
hostility  to  all  vulgarizing  of  this  esoteric  treasure  of  God's 
Word  (this  "pearl"  that  must  not  be  "cast  before  swine" ),^''' 
is  in  fact  the  exact  measure  of  the  compelling  force  that 
urged  these  translators  to  what  was  in  itself  an  unwelcome 
task.  So  strong,  then,  was  this  purpose  in  them,  to  undo 
the  harm  that  existing  English  versions  were  doing. 

The  impression  thus  openly  created  in  the  prefaces  is  only 
deepened  by  the  study  of  what  they  produced.  The  char- 
acter of  its  numerous  controversial  notes  may  be  judged 
from  this  estimate  passed  upon  them  by  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic priest,  Alexander  Geddes  (1787)  :^^  "The  translation  is 
accompanied  with  virulent  annotations  against  the  Protest- 
ant religion,  and  is  manifestly  calculated  to  support  a  sys- 
tem, not  of  genuine  catholicity,  but  of  transalpine  popery."^^ 


•"Similarly,  Cardinal  Hosius,  "De  expresso  verbo  Dei,"  I,  p.  640: 
"Laicis  lectionem  Scr.  permittere  est  sanctum  canibus  dare  et  margari- 
tas  ante  porcos  projicere." 

"Author  of  the  learned  treatise  "De  vulgarium  S.  Scr.  versionum 
vitiis",  freely  cited  by  Van  Ess,  op.  cit. 

**The  original  New  Testament  notes  were  prepared  by  Richard 
Bristow.  Their  character  may  be  judged  from  this  latest  chapter  in 
their  history:  when  reprinted  at  Dublin  a  century  ago  (by  McNamara- 
Coyne,    1816,   with   Archbishop   Troy's   approbation),   they  aroused   so 


598  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

On  the  other  hand,  a  careful  inspection  of  the  text  of  their 
version  reveals  the  substantial  truthfulness  of  that  solemn 
asseveration  with  which  their  preface  to  the  New  Testament 
closes :  "Thus  we  have  endeavoured  ...  to  deal  most 
sincerely  before  God  and  man,  in  translating  and  expound- 
ing the  most  sacred  text  of  the  Holy  Testament."  Allow 
them  their  uncritical  Vulgate-text,  with  its  variety  of  read- 
ings to  support  whatever  was  most  congenial  to  the  Rom- 
ish system;  grant  them  the  methods  of  translating  which 
they  adopt  and  defend;  and  one  must  admit  that  on  the 
whole  they  have  "dealt  most  sincerely  in  translating  the  most 
sacred  text".  While  distinctively  Romish  ecclesiastical 
terms  are  retained,  such  as  sacrament,  penance,  priest,  this 
is  in  line  with  an  avowed  principle  of  their  method.  If 
"Woman,  what  have  I  to  do  with  thee?"  (John  2:4)  is 
rendered:  "What  is  to  me  and  thee,  woman?"  in  order  to 
avoid  even  the  appearance  of  a  slight  to  the  Blessed  Virgin, 
this  also  is  but  a  literalism  and  in  accord  with  another  prin- 
ciple laid  down  in  the  preface. "^^  Thus  motive  and  method 
are  intermingled  in  such  a  way  that  while  the  method  is 
defended  on  independent  grounds,  the  real  reason  for  its 


much  indignation  in  Great  Britain  that  the  matter  was  brought  up  in 
Parliament,  and  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin  and  the  rest  of  the  Roman 
Clergy  were  constrained  to  withdraw  their  approbation.  These  anno- 
tations frequently  descend  from  doctrines  to  personalities;  for  exam- 
ple, the  "two  masters"  of  Matt.  vi.  24  are  explained  as  "Christ  and 
Calvin",  with  more  alliterative  skill  than  exegetical  soundness.  Some 
notes  that  do  not  assail  the  Protestants  maintain  peculiar  Roman 
Catholic  doctrines,  in  a  spirit  that  may  be  judged  from  the  following 
examples  (cited  by  Dr.  Eadie,  vol.  ii,  p.  145)  : — On  II  Tim.  iv:  "The 
parable  also  of  the  men  sent  into  the  vineyard  proveth  that  heaven  is 
our  own  right,  bargained  for  and  wrought  for,  and  accordingly  paid 
unto  us  as  our  hire  at  the  day  of  judgment."  On  Rev.  vi.  9:  "Saints 
be  present  at  their  tombs  and  relics."  On  Rev.  xvii.  6:  "Putting  here- 
tics to  death  is  not  to  shed  the  blood  of  the  saints."  "Heresy  and 
apostasy  from  the  Catholic  faith  punishable  by  death." 

™  Later  Catholic  editors  are  less  fair  than  the  Rhemists  in  this  pas- 
sage. Both  Haydock's  and  Troy's  Bibles  read :  "Woman,  what  is  that 
to  me  and  to  thee?"  Of  the  alternative  interpretations  permitted  by 
the  wording  of  the  original  edition  (and  so  explained  in  an  accompany- 
ing note),  these  editors  have  thus  adopted  unreservedly  the  inferior 
choice,  simply  because  it  better  agrees  with  Roman    Catholic  dogma. 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  599 

adoption  is  to  be  sought  in  the  motive.  Every  point  is  to 
be  made,  in  the  text,  that  can  honestly  be  made,  against 
Protestantism  and  for  Roman  CathoHcism. 

Of  the  motives  of  later  editors  of  the  Douai  Bible  the  fol- 
lowing may  be  said.  In  accordance  with  the  changed  spirit 
of  the  times,  the  English  Catholic  Bible  was  to  be  made  less 
virulent,  less  strikingly  sectarian  and  partisan.  Yet  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  purpose  of  its  original  translators,  this 
"minority  Bible"  was  not  to  lose  its  identity  by  yielding  its 
distinctive  features,  nor  fail  in  its  mission  of  counteracting 
the  baleful  influence  of  Protestant  Bibles.  The  approved 
English  Bibles  of  Catholic  America  to-day  show  the  work- 
ing of  both  these  motives.  No  concession  is  made  on  the 
canon,  and  practically  none  on  the  text ;  the  changes  in  trans- 
lation are  more  to  modernize  the  language  than  to  broaden 
the  spirit;  the  chief  concession  lies  wholly  outside  the  ver- 
sion as  such,  in  the  omission  of  the  now  indefensible  prefaces 
and  in  the  alteration  of  the  original  annotations.  Yet  it  is 
emphatically  to-day,  as  it  was  three  centuries  ago,  the  Bible 
of  a  sect;  as  we  have  had  a  Unitarian  Bible,  and  a  Baptist 
Bible,  so  in  the  Douai  Version  we  have  a  Roman  Catholic 
Bible."^! 

But,  second,  different  motives  have  led  to  the  adoption 
of  different  methods.  It  is  therefore  to  the  consideration  of 
these  methods  of  the  Catholic  translators  that  we  are  now 


"  It  is  customary  now  to  print  on  the  fly-kaf  of  Catholic  Bibles, 
together  with  the  certified  approbation  of  the  ecclesiastics  having  jur- 
isdiction, two  papal  pronouncements  of  the  i8th  century  in  favor  of 
vernacular  Bibles:  (i)  the  decree  of  Benedict  XIV  (i757)  which  per- 
mits "to  all  the  faithful  to  read  the  Holy  Scriptures  in  their  mother- 
tongue,  if  the  translations  are  approved  by  the  Apostolic  See,  or  pro- 
vided with  notes  from  the  Fathers  or  from  Catholic  scholars";  and 
(2)  the  letter  of  Pius  VI  to  Archbishop  Martini  (1778)  commend- 
ing his  Italian  version  of  the  Bible.  It  may  be  remarked  in  passing  that 
this  Italian  Bible  appeared  in  23  quarto  volumes.  Hardly  a  popular 
Bible,  this!  A  later  edition  of  it,  without  notes  (1818),  was  at  once 
put  "on  the  index"  of  prohibited  books.  "Furthermore,  the  Encyclical 
of  Leo  XII  (1824)  makes  no  exceptions  in  its  denunciation  of  the 
"poisonous  pastures"  of  vernacular  Bibles,  by  whose  publication  "more 
evil  than  advantage  will  arise  because  of  the  rashness  of  men'. 


600  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

brought ;  first,  to  their  avowed  principles,  and  second,  to  the 
faithlessness  and  success  with  which  these  principles  are 
carried  out. 

"We  are  very  precise  and  religious",  say  the  Rhemists, 
"in  following  our  copy,  the  old  vulgar  approved  Latin :  not 
only  in  sense,  which  we  hope  we  always  do,  but  sometimes  in 
the  very  words  also  and  phrases."  Again,  "we  have  used  no 
partiality  for  the  disadvantage  of  our  adversaries,  nor  no 
more  license  than  is  sufferable  in  translating:  .  .  .  ac- 
knowledging with  St.  Jerome,  that  in  other  writings  it  is 
enough  to  give  in  translation,  sense  for  sense,  but  that  in 
Scriptures,  lest  we  miss  the  sense,  we  must  keep  the  very 
words."  And  again,  "knowing  that  the  good  and  simple 
may  easily  be  seduced  by  some  few  obstinate  persons  of  per- 
dition, .  .  .  and  finding  by  experience  this  same  saying 
of  St.  Augustine  to  be  most  true,  'If  the  prejudice  of  any 
erroneous  persuasion  preoccupate  the  mind,  whatsoever  the 
Scripture  hath  to  the  contrary,  men  take  it  for  a  figurative 
speech' :  for  these  causes,  and  somewhat  to  help  the  faithful 
reader  in  the  difficulties  of  divers  places,  we  have  also  set 
forth  reasonable  large  annotations." 

Here  is  a  profession  of  three  principles  in  the  method  of 
making  a  version :  first,  honest  rendering ;  second,  literal 
rendering;  and  third,  polemic  and  doctrinal  notes.  Does  a 
candid  examination  of  the  version  show  actual  adherence  to 
the  principles  thus  advertised  ? 

It  does.  In  treating  of  the  motives  we  have  already  seen 
the  sincerity  of  the  Rhemists  in  the  rendering  of  their  text 
such  as  it  was.  Through  all  the  violent  attacks  of  English 
Protestants,  this  boast  has  never  been  proved  idle.  If  the 
English  form  in  which,  for  example,  they  clothed  Christ's 
language  to  Mary  in  John  2 :  4  is  an  expression  less  offen- 
sive to  ears  accustomed  to  hearing  Mary's  name  coupled  with 
the  attributes  of  divinity,  it  is  at  least  no  falsification  of  the 
original ;  it  is  too  literal,  it  is  un-English,  its  Catholic  motive 
is  transparent ;  but  it  is  not  dishonest. 

Literalism  is  the  most  marked  characteristic  of  the  Douai 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  6or 

Bible.  Being  made  from  the  Latin,  this  HteraHsm  means 
Latinity  of  phraseology,  and  as  it  is  carried  to  an  extreme, 
it  means  Latinity  of  diction  to  a  degree  unequalled  by  any 
popular  book  in  our  tongue.  There  are,  it  is  true,  many 
good  Saxon  words  and  phrases.  A  few  of  these  are  even 
used  in  this  version  for  the  first  time ;  the  bulk  of  them  are 
borrowed  from  earlier  English  versions :  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment mainly  from  Coverdale,  who  like  the  Catholics  trans- 
lated this  Testament  from  the  Latin,  and  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, strange  to  say,  predominatingly  from  the  men  of 
Geneva,  the  most  Protestant  of  all  the  translators.^^.  Yet 
the  distinctive  tone  of  the  Douai  Bible  is  its  excessive  use 
of  Latin  words  carried  over  bodily  into  English,  either 
graced  with  an  English  termination,  or  sometimes  quite  un- 
changed, like  gratis  and  depositum.  Master  Fulke  makes 
fun  of  their  professed  intention  to  transfer  into  English  the 
Greek  words  retained  by  the  Latin  translators  and  so  present 
in  the  Vulgate.  "As  for  Greek  terms",  he  writes,'^^  "which 
may  well  enough  be  expressed  in  the  English  tongue,  we  see 
no  cause  why  we  should  retain  them,  as  Parasceve,  asymes, 
neophyte.  And  if  you  had  so  religious  a  care  to  use  all  the 
Greek  words  in  your  English  translation  which  you  find  in 
your  vulgar  Latin  text,  then  you  would  as  well  have  trans- 
lated these  and  such  like  Greek  words  as  your  Latin  text 
hath:  Magi,  Mages,  and  not  as  you  have  done.  Sages; 
Ecclesia,  Ecclese,  not  Church;  Architrichlinus,  Architrich- 
line,  not  Chief  Steward ;  Encoenia,  Encenes,  not  Dedication ; 

"  It  is  but  very  recently  that  systematic  comparison  has  revealed  the 
closeness  of  the  bonds  by  vt-hich  the  Rhemish  Testament  is  bound,  on 
the  one  side  to  the  i6th  century  versions  that  preceded  it,  and  on  the 
other  side  to  the  Authorized  Version  of  1611.  See  "The  Part  of 
Rheims  in  the  Making  of  the  English  Bible",  by  J.  G.  Carleton,  D.D., 
Oxford,  1902.  This  v^rriter  gives  a  table  containing  over  six  hun- 
dred passages  in  the  New  Testament  common  to  the  Authorized, 
Rheims  and  Geneva  versions.  And  besides  these,  there  are  doubtless 
some  others  common  to  Rheims  and  Geneva,  that  v^^ere  not  subse- 
quently adopted  by  the  Authorized  Version. 

""^  Confutation  of  the  Rhemish  Testament",  Preface.  A  little 
freedom  has  been  u<^ed  in  recasting  Fulke's  sentences  for  greater  clear- 
ness. 


602  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

Dyscolis,  Discoles,  not  Wayward;  Pyra,  Pyre,  not  Fire; 
Nauclerus,  Nauclere,  not  Master  of  the  Ship;  Typhonicus, 
Typhonic,  not  Tempestuous;  Bolis,  Bole,  not  Sound; 
Artemon,  Artemon,  not  Mainsail ;  Dithalassus,  Dithalass,  not 
a  Place  between  the  Two  Seas :  where,  if  we  should  pick 
quarrels  as  you  do  against  us,  we  should  make  ourselves  to 
all  wise  people  ridiculous,  as  you  are." 

A  selected  example  will  show  to  readers  unfamiliar  with 
the  Rheims  Testament  the  practical  effect  of  this  principle 
of  literalism.  In  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  chapter  three, 
Paul  is  made  to  say :  "To  me  the  least  of  all  the  saints  is 
given  this  grace,  among  the  Gentiles  to  evangelize  the 
unsearchable  riches  of  Christ,  and  to  illuminate  all  men  what 
is  the  dispensation  of  the  sacrament  hidden  from  worlds  in 
God,  who  created  all  things :  that  the  manifold  wisdom  of 
God  may  be  notified  to  the  Princes  and  Potestats  in  the  celes- 
tials by  the  Church,  according  to  the  prefinition  of  worlds." 
What  wonder  that  the  Protestants  of  their  day  were  tempted 
to  taunt  them  with  intentional  obscurity  for  the  simple  Eng- 
lish reader,  as  where  in  the  address  prefixed  to  the  Author- 
ized Version  we  read :  "We  have  shunned  the  obscurity  of 
the  Papists,  in  their  asymes,  tunike,  rationall,  holocausts, 
prepuce,  pasche,  and  a  number  of  such  like,  whereof  their 
late  translation  is  full,  and  that  of  purpose  to  darken  the 
sense,  that  since  they  must  needs  translate  the  Bible,  yet  by 
the  language  thereof  it  may  be  kept  from  being  understood." 
Fulke,  blunt  as  always,  says  :'^^"  "Not  the  desire  of  sincerity, 
but  rather  of  obscurity,  hath  made  you  thrust  in  a  great 
number  of  words,  not  only  Hebrew  or  Syriac,  which  are 
found  in  the  Greek  text,  but  also  Greek  and  Latin  words, 
leaving  the  English  words  of  the  same,  which  by  long  use 
are  well  known  and  familiar  in  the  English  tongue."  Severe 
as  are  these  arraignments,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
Rhemish  translators  threw  themselves  open  to  them  by  their 
slavish  adherence  to  the  Latin  before  them.  It  is  no  dis- 
credit to  their  skill  in  English,  for  many  a  felicitous  turn 

'*"  Op.  cit. 


THE   ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  603 

proves  mastery  of  their  mother-tongue.  Rather,  it  is  but 
another  evidence  of  that  cramped  and  ilHberal  view  of  the 
uses  of.  Scripture  which  is  openly  avowed  in  their  preface, 
but  which  CathoHcs  of  this  later  day  are  at  great  pains,  if 
not  to  contradict,  at  least  to  modify  and  explain  away. 

Such  was,  and  such  remains,  an  all-pervasive,  obtrusive 
blemish  of  a  version  of  which  a  distinguished  Protestant  like 
Alford  could  say  :'^^  "With  many  great  defects,  it  is  by  far 
the  most  carefully  made  of  all  in  our  language",  (that  is,  up 
till  1868,  the  year  he  wrote  these  words)  ;  and  of  which  an 
authority  on  the  English  Bible  like  Dr.  Moulton  of  Cam- 
bridge could  write  :''^'  "Every  other  English  version  is  to  be 
preferred  to  this,  if  it  must  be  taken  as  a  whole;  no  other 
English  version  will  prove  more  instructive  to  the  student 
who  will  take  the  pains  to  separate  what  is  good  and  useful 
from  what  is  ill-advised  and  wrong". 

Of  the  third  principle,  the  association  of  polemic  and 
doctrinal  notes  with  the  sacred  Scripture,  enough  has  per- 
haps been  said  already.  Catholics  have  taken  a  step  in  the 
right  direction,  in  modifying  the  tone  of  the  original  notes. 
It  remains  for  them  to  acknowledge  the  justice  of  that 
principle  upon  which  Protestants  now  firmly  stand :  an 
unmixed  Word  of  God ;  a  Bible  without  note,  interpretative 
heading,  controversial  preface  or  appendix;  a  volume  that 
in  its  canon,  text  and  rendering  presents  to  its  reader  as 
nearly  as  possible  that,  and  only  that,  which  "men  spake 
from  God,  being  moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit". 

If  Ihere  is  any  unity  discoverable  in  the  complex  impres- 
sion left  by  the  detailed  exhibition  of  these  differences 
between  the  English  Bible  of  the  Catholic  and  that  of  the 
Protestant,  is  it  not  to  be  found  in  that  one  great  outstanding 
contrast  between  the  Romish  and  the  Protestant  interpreta- 
tions of  Christianity?  Romanism  seeks  to  save  the  world 
by  the  spread  of  a  single,  infallible,  visible  Church ;  Protes- 
tantism, by  the  spread  of  the  Gospel  of  God's  grace  in  Christ. 

''*  Contemporary  Review,"  1868,  VIII,  332. 
^^  "History  of  the  English  Bible",  p.  188. 


604  THE    PRINCETON    THEOLOGICAL    REVIEW 

The  two  views  of  the  vernacular  Bible  spring  from  these 
contrasted  views  of  the  essence  of  Christianity. 

To  the  Romanist,  the  Bible  is  one  of  the  sources  of  the 
Church's  doctrine,  written  by  men  of  the  Church  (of  course 
under  the  Spirit's  inspiration),  committed  to  the  care  of  the 
Church,  authenticated  by  the  Church,  interpreted  infallibly 
through  the  head  of  the  Church,  designed  for  the  uses  of 
the  Church.  As  such,  the  Bible  for  the  men  of  Rheims  and 
Douai  numbered  such  books  in  its  canon  as  the  Church  of 
Rome  pronounced  divine.  It  existed  in  its  only  authentic 
form  in  a  (hypothetical)  perfect  edition  of  the  Vulgate,  the 
text  of  the  Roman  Church.  It  was  to  be  translated  and 
issued  in  the  vernacular,  if  at  all,  only  in  such  forms  of 
speech,  at  such  times,  and  with  such  interpretative  accom- 
paniments, as  might  best  serve  the  Church's  immediate  need. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Bible  is  to  the  Protestant  the 
message  of  God  to  mankind  about  salvation,  promised  and 
prepared  for,  granted  and  urged.  As  such,  the  Bible  for  the 
makers  of  the  Protestant  version,  in  all  its  various  editions, 
is  the  book  of  the  Saviour,  containing  the  books  vouched  for, 
where  possible,  by  Christ  Himself,  where  that  was  chrono- 
logically impossible,  by  those  who  lived  nearest  to  Him.  Its 
only  authentic  form  is  that  given  it  primitively  by  its  divine 
Author,  while  present  editions  are  more  or  less  authentic 
only  according  as  they  more  or  less  exactly  reproduce  that 
form.  And  it  is  to  be  faithfully  translated  into  every  tongue 
of  earth,  left  quite  unmixed  with  the  words  of  men,  and  by 
the  most  practical  form  given  the  widest  possible  circulation. 
It  is  by  such  means,  the  Protestant  believes,  that  the  salva- 
tion of  God  can  best  be  spread,  which  lies  indeed  in  a  "king- 
dom", but  one  that  is  "not  eating  and  drinking,  but  right- 
eousness and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Spirit". 

Too  much,  however,  must  not  be  made  of  this  contrast  in 
ultimate  principia  as  determining  necessarily  the  attitude  of 
Catholic  and  Protestant  respectively  toward  these  problems 
of  Biblical  scholarship  and  dissemination.  For  there  have 
been  not  a  few  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  like  Leander 


THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    ENGLISH    BIBLE  605 

van  Ess,  who,  as  right  in  their  conclusions  as  they  were 
illogical  in  their  processes,  have  come  out  squarely  for  a 
vernacular  Bible  constructed  wholly,  in  canon,  text  and  ver- 
sion, on  the  principles  that  have  yielded  us  our  Protestant 
Bible.  To  the  words  of  van  Ess'^^  would  that  all  Christians, 
Catholic  and  Protestant,  could  say  a  hearty  amen ! — "As  sure 
as  it  is  that  the  hostile  assertion  by  each  Christian  confession 
that  it  alone  possesses  the  true  Bible,  has  done  much  to 
sunder  Christian  from  Christian  and  to  break  the  bond  of 
love  and  peace;  just  so  surely  will  it  come  to  pass  that  Chris- 
tians will  draw  nearer  to  each  other,  if  the  belief  becomes 
more  general  that  all  Christian  confessions  have  one  and  the 
same  Bible,  and  at  length  even  one  and  the  same  version  in 
their  own  tongue,  and  not,  like  children,  childishly  quarrel 
about  rival  Church-versions;  if  in  the  Catholic  Church  the 
distribution  of  the  Bible  becomes  more  wide-spread,  while  in 
the  Protestant  Church  there  returns  that  old  pious  belief  in 
the  Bible,  which  the  unchristian  spirit  of  the  age  is  striving 
to  destroy." 
Princeton.  J.  Oscar  Boyd. 

"In  the  preface  to  his  "Geschichte  der  Vulgata". 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  EMPEROR  JULIAN. 

Julian  the  Emperor,  of  the  dynasty  of  the  "Great"  Con- 
stantine  whose  nephew  he  was,  will  always  be  an  object  of 
wide  concern  and  curious  interest.  The  student  of  the 
History  of  Christianity  no  less  than  the  philosopher,  the 
politician  and  historian  as  well  as  the  classicist,  cannot  but 
approach  his  figure  and  personality  with  many  ques- 
tions. Apostasy  from  Christianity  is  indeed  not  nearly  so 
common  as  is  the  quiet  denial  or  the  practical  renunciation 
of  its  noble  and  transcendental  postulates,  but  here  we  deal 
with  one  who  after  some  substantial  acquaintance  with  his- 
torical Christianity,  a  pupil  of  Eusebius,  though  probably 
never  more  than  a  very  young  and  merely  academic  Chris- 
tian, was  won  for  paganism  largely  through  philosophical 
influences  as  well  as  by  the  glamor  which  overwhelmed  his 
young  and  eager  mind  and  by  the  power  inherent  in  what 
he  certainly  considered  a  surpassing  and  triumphant  cul- 
ture, 

"Paganism" — how  easily  do  we  pen  the  word,  how  glibly 
often  do  we  utter  the  term!  Many  years  of  earnest  and 
exact  reading  have  at  last  taught  the  present  writer  to  dis- 
abuse his  mind  and  to  redeem  his  historical  vision  from 
much  of  the  idealizing  glamor  which  like  an  iridescent  film 
— but  still  a  film — has  somehow  come  to  cling  to  the  sur- 
face of  the  classical  world  in  its  distant  reflection.  Fine 
letters  and  exquisite  marbles  and  bronzes  and  architecture, 
as  well  as  the  dead  mechanism  of  sheer  tradition,  have  much 
to  do  with  this  artificial  and  grossly  unhistorical  perversion 
of  perspective. 

From  the  fine  and  wearisome  theories  spun  out  by 
archaeologists  and  other  aesthetical  persons  concerning 
Greek  Religion  so  called,  let  us  turn  back  for  a  moment,  to 
certain  data  furnished  by  an  earnest  devotee  of  both  that 
culture  and  that  religion,  Pausanias.^     In  him  we  have  a 


Cf.  the  writer's  Testimonium  Animae  1908,  pp.  sqq. 


Stockton,  Calif. 


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